A/N: Most importantly, thank you.

This is it. The end. I started this story just as I was winding up my very first one... a very long time ago now.

I wanted to write something SS/HG, but different. Hopefully, I managed that. God knows, it took me two days shy of forever.

There was supposed to be this notion of a morality play in this. That just because we trust someone, we need not do everything we are asked by them. That did perhaps get lost along the way with all the sex and madness.

I would not be here if you folks had not read and reviewed so kindly. More than just the sweet and supportive reviews, I also enjoyed the engaged and involved (even profanity laden) reviews that reminded me of plot threads and such. Thank you!

And thank you one more time to the lovely Selmak who endured way too many hours trying to better the madness I came up with.

I am going to miss you folks horribly! Do bop over to my other fics if I forget to write another POTTER one, as I've gotten very attached to you.

...

Other characters: You are free to decide what happens to all the characters. Obviously. But in my mind, Poppy has a lovely time feeling special and brilliant in London. It takes her some time to adjust to being fawned over a bit. But she shuns the attention and ends up with a no-nonsense sort of woman who manages the finances at St. Mungo's. She and her new partner return to Hogwarts in a years time.

Madam Hooch (I've decided) shows back up to Hogwarts pregnant, and while the board would deny her her job, it turns out that she and Thomas are married. It is just a rather unconventional, on again, off again sort of marriage. They've agreed that they will do best if they spend only half the year together. They know the baby is a boy. The Wizarding prophesy says so. His grandmother says so. His dreams tell him, too. And they are thinking up ways to baby proof her quarters already as they know he will be trouble (but worth it).

Sprout and Flitwick have both become horribly foggy brained they are so enamored with one another. Minerva is hoping they will just settle into a comfortable boring marriage and get on with it before they walk into each other's classrooms wearing the wrong robes again.

In my rather twisted brain, Slughorn ran off to Crete with a 90 year old dowager. She then died, leaving him with a trunk full of cash and jewels. He replaced her with three 30 year olds (who do not mind sharing) and he is smiling a lot in his sleep. When he sleeps. Mineva is back at Hogwarts grinding her teeth every time she thinks about it.

Seamus and Ellie are running an international non-profit.

Harry's biggest problem is sneaking in to see Ginny now that she's gone back to Hogwarts. Molly is keeping tabs on him daily, of course. He is fielding offers from departments across the Wizarding governmental world, but is putting off a decision for at least 6 months.

Ron has decided to go into medicine, but he is taking the year to get ready. He and his girlfriend (thank God he listened to his mother and went to that health career seminar or he never would have met her) are taking preparatory classes and will be in the same year at St. Mungo's.

/

Severus woke with a start at the sound of voices. He was sure that he was dreaming, sure that it was a very, very bad dream.

Quickly dressed, he appeared in the hallway to confront what he hoped was an apparition.

Rounding the corner for the living room, Severus saw the looming reality.

"Snape," Mad Eye said as if it was an accusation. "Have you come to your senses?"

"Not at all. I'm having horrible hallucinations." He made a show of rubbing at his head as if just waking up. "Even now," he purred, "I am having the most retched visions."

"Grow up, Severus." Mad Eye shot back languidly, as he lowered himself into a chair.

"Why are you here?" the potion master demanded. "Did Minerva tire of you or are you here to help?"

"I'm here to deliver a message," Alastor growled at the younger man. And he produced a letter from inside his vest.

"Reduced to the role of house owl? How far will you let Minerva push you..." Snape asked with manufactured venom.

Mad Eye only smiled harder though, knowing he had the upper hand. "Does that mean you don't want this?"

In that instance, Severus knew the letter was from Hermione, not Minerva, and that he was very likely going to have to beg to get at it.

"Sit down, Severus," Mad Eye said with an amused and kinder tone as he tucked the letter away again. "I had thought you were merely stubborn. Or an idiot. But you simply don't know what to do next? How to handle this transition. And you want to be completely sure."

There was a look in Severus' eyes that was clearly surprised that Moody understood so plainly now.

"Have you never not known what to do, Mad Eye? Must you be so damnably smug?"

The older Wizard nodded. "This is a time of adjustment for all of us," Moody assured him. The old Auror thought, perhaps, this was a Severus Snape who might be ready to listen.

"I had decided I should wait out the year. The Wizarding world's period of proper mourning after the battle," Severus said, trying to infuse his usual confidence into the words.

"A year?" The Goblin began to hyper ventilate from his spot at the edge of the room.

Alastor only shook his head in silence.

"A year from the day of the battle. Control yourself. Both of you. It is a completely sensible idea," Severus tried.

"God, I was right. You are stubborn. And an idiot," Alastor pronounced. "You tell yourself you are giving her her freedom. Because you will not be happy in that twisted brain of yours until she gives up on you. Do you think her inconstant? Faithless?"

He thought about the picture of Hermione, and he knew, "I don't doubt her... not any more."

"Yet, you still sit here? I give up! It would serve you right if I took Hermoine back to Derry where she could meet some real men. Men who knew what they wanted from life and moved at something other than a glacial pace. Because, Severus, a day more, a month, a year. It makes no difference. She loves you, and there is no one else." The man paused then. "Can you believe that?" he asked more gently.

The silence stretched on, punctuated only by the small noises the Goblin was now making in the kitchen. Geberic sent out drinks finally on a tray that moved slowly under its own power.

Snape welcomed the diversion. He pulled a cup from the tray. He drank the tea and actively tried to relax. Alastor settled back and balanced his saucer on his belly.

"I've made a commitment to Geberic, I have to finish this," Severus said at last.

"He could have been done a month ago!" came a complaining voice from the kitchen.

"Go home, Severus, and let me finish things here," Alastor offered at a whisper. But Snape only shook his head.

The men managed an oddly companionable silence until Alastor finally asked, "Do you think things between you and Hermione will fail, or only fear they might?"

Snape blew out a breath and considered what that meant. And as he saw the difference, he realized that months before he had believed that things between him and Hermione were impossible. And that now, he worried that if begun, it would not last.

Something had changed.

Mad Eye was smiling now, as if he knew the younger Wizard's thoughts. "Oh, Saints in Heaven! Sharp as a sausage. That's you," Alastor said as if he was talking to his tea cup.

"Can life with me make her happy?" Severus said then, as if merely wondering out loud.

"Oh, lower the bar, Snape!" Alastor tried to joke. "Life with you will never be a party. Don't worry that you will disappoint her. You will. It is what men do. Learn to ask for forgiveness. There are worse things." There was a knowing pause then and a knowing smile. "Is she happier with you or without you? I will tell you she is miserable right now. Yes," he said in answer to the raised eyebrows. "Even with her friends back around her." Alastor sighed. "And can she make you happy? Is that the other half of it, Severus?"

"No. I tend not to worry about that." Severus shifted uncomfortably then. "But how can I be content watching the Wizarding world punish her for her choices – me chief among them?"

"You can tell those busy bodies to go bugger themselves. As I am sure Hermione would do. As she has done these passed months. Or you can leave. You could, you know. Move out to the moors. Set up a by-owl apothecary. Live as a Muggle! Hell, teach abroad." Mad Eye suggested with a grand, accompanying wave of his hand.

Severus had considered some of those things, but was still surprised to hear the barrel-chested old wizard suggest them.

"There are a thousand reasons it won't work. That's what's been keeping you here," the old Wizard said. "That's what the doubting part of you tells yourself. You're older. She has that group of clingy friends. Her parents might disapprove. There are too many reasons not to go back. If you are the timid sort," Alastor said provokingly. "But there are one or two reasons to go back to her, Severus. And they trump all the rest. Do you love her? Will you spend every day you aren't with her, wishing that you were?"

Severus looked away, clearly discomforted, and Alastor pressed his advantage.

"Yes, she's young, Severus. You think she might not know her mind? But I believe she loves you as much as anyone ever can. Can you believe that at last? Can you believe that she won't have her head turned by anyone else? She's a smart woman?" Alastor asked.

"Obviously," Severus said, glaring.

"Then let this be her decision. Let her decide if you are the right man for her."

Snape thought of the photo again and that smile. He knew she still loved him. And only him. He did not understand it. Perhaps, he did not need to. But he could see it in her.

"How do you go from being a man who has always lived alone. Been alone. To one who shares his life, his space, with a woman?" Severus wondered aloud.

"You learn to, because when you meet that right woman, suddenly living alone seems more painful than the change you'd have to make."

Snape nodded solemnly.

"Look," Alastor began again. "I would dearly love to drop kick your ass across the church yard and confirm for you that you are not good enough for Hermione, if only because you have kept her on her own these two months. But I won't. She loves you, Severus, because you are a good and worthy man. Brave and fair, and occasionally, even bright. But you don't know when to turn off that great bleeding brain of yours for your own good. Tell me you have not been thinking this to death like some great calculation. Your ages, minus the number of times you have fought, times the fear that you feel when you think of failing. Of course you are afraid of failing, you stupid git. You love her, and you don't want to hurt her."

Mad Eye leaned forward and gripped the younger man's shirt. He shook the potion master gently. Almost playfully. Like a friend or a father might. "You are thinking what to do. You are trying to rationally solve this like a potion you are unsure of or an arithmancy equation." There was a smile then that Severus could only frown at in confusion. Alastor gave his shirt another tug then. It was the place over his heart that the old Wizard gripped, Severus saw then.

"Where do you want to be? Does something pull at that lion's heart of yours?" Moody asked him hoarsely. "Doesn't it hurt not to be there?" Alastor dropped his grip on the man and suddenly stood up. "Don't answer me. God, don't ruin THIS with that sour mouth of yours. Stop thinking so much, my boy, because you do know what to do. I'll see myself out."

The elder Wizard pulled the envelope from his vest pocket and dropped it in the younger man's lap.

Seeing only that letter now, Severus did not even look up to watch Mad Eye depart.

...

Once back in his room, Severus cautiously unfolded the parchment.

After the greeting, Hermione's words were quickly direct.

Ron knows I love you. He believes it finally, despite whatever misunderstandings you encouraged before you left. You see, you rotten sod, if Professor Dumbledore had simply made me love you, I would have loved you patiently and evenly from that very first moment. But I didn't. Did I?

So Ron got to hear in excruciating detail how I feared you at first. How you made me so infuriated. How I childishly approached you, placing myself robotically in your bed. I explained that it was Christmas time when I first began to realize what it was I felt.

I told Ron how afraid I was to tell you. And how it hurt to admit you want none of it from me - because you are convinced I am insane or better off without you.

Ron is able to believe it all now, because we've had some time together. He can see how things between him and I would never work. He's seeing someone else now, and I'm happy for him.

So, I am left with a strange notion at times like this... Ron can see that I love you. Ron can allow that I want a life with you.

And you can't.

It has been a year since I've fallen in love with you. If anything, I feel it stronger now. It is not loneliness. Don't lie to yourself and pretend that it is. There are people enough around, if I want them. I miss you.

I'll forget my pride. I'll forget how I have promised not to push you. And I'll tell you, I love you, and I want you with me. I know nothing is certain. Please, let's just try.

Tell me you are coming back soon or Gundi and I will be out to see you. Because even if you are intent on rejecting me, we need to have a conversation, at least.

...

Rejecting her? How could she see it that way? He shook his head. He read the letter over once more, tracing the words with his fingers. He read it again and again, seeing only parts of it now as his eyes moved over it until he could feel the things she was saying.

I love you. What I felt... How it hurt. I want a life with you. I love you. I want you with me.

Try. Just Try, she was telling him.

The words fell on him differently now, he realized, after Alastor's chastising. For Hermione's sake, he would stop trying to solve this as a puzzle. It was, he was learning, alright, to be without an absolute answer.

It was time to trust Hermione's choice. And she had, against all odds, chosen him.

We need to have a conversation, at least, she had said in closing.

At least, his brain echoed with a borrowed surety.

... ... ... ... ...

"You are packed. Merciful heaven. You are packed. Good bye!" Geberic cheered.

"You're welcome," the tall wizard intoned, flatly.

"The last of the artifacts from the burrow is gone, then?"

"Yesterday, they took the last," Severus confirmed.

"Heavens, you took your time!"

"The point is," Severus said through clenched teeth, "when I get back, there will be no more excuses. I have purposely not stood between anyone and Hermione."

"Oh, no. No one but yourself," Geberic snipped, disapprovingly.

"I wasn't a man worth having a year ago. So, I have saved her a year of suffering."

"Madman! You may not have been worth having, but she is! Wizards! How can goblin-kind ever trust you with anything? When Goblins have something of value, they don't sit it out on a shelf, unprotected, inviting someone else to steal it."

"She isn't a vase, Geberic. And as best I know, no one has run off with her."

"Then you will propose?" came the eager question.

"She and I can talk," the wizard would only say.

"Talk? Timid? You? And here I thought you Perseus. Or she did," the Goblin teased.

"Would it surprise you to know I do not fancy myself a hero, Geberic?"

"Ah. But you can not deny your child was as good as forged. Purposefully fashioned. So who might that make you? Haephestus? Hmmm? But you will not return to your forge, I think? So are you truly Perseus in the end? Have you won the maiden? Just who are you?"

"I had rather fancied myself as Severus Snape," he told the Goblin, as he fastened the last buckle on his satchel.

"Boring," mumbled Geberic.

"Indeed. But perhaps, good enough."

Hermione let him in the cottage door, by leaning out to hold it for him. She turned sideways then, so he could pass through. They moved together into her small hallway.

Facing her like that, no space between them, Severus felt he should kiss her. But it was awkward at best. Emotionally and physically.

The boy had a hold of her legs. She was off balance and laughing now as she tried to close the outer door. And soon Severus was standing even farther from her, feeling he had missed his chance.

But Hermione wouldn't let that happen. Determinedly, she looked down at the dark haired child who clung to her trousers, and with a smile she told him, "You! Off. Give me a chance to kiss your father."

The surety in the words struck Severus. The fullness of what she said left him rooted there, unable and unwilling to move. If he ever doubted who he was or what he should do, he did not doubt she could tell him.

Having declared her intent, she moved to Severus with Gundi still trailing behind her. She smoothed the man's face and looked into his eyes, and finally, finally she kissed him.

"We missed you," she told him intently, as she eased back.

"It was a long time," he managed. He allowed his hands to stay at her sides.

"The longest we've been apart," she explained unnecessarily.

"Grrrrrrrrrrr!" Gundi shouted from his spot on the floor.

"Did he just... growl at me?"

"He did," Hermione agreed.

"You've let the boy go wild," Severus said with a neutrality that may have signaled approval.

Hermione crooked her head to look at her son. "How about you go find your bear and your blankie? They're in the other room," she said to the boy gently. "We'll be out in a minute, Gund." But the boy just shook his head "No" over and over again. Hermione leaned down then, deciding a bribe was in order, "I'll bring in juice. Now go!" And in a flash, Gundi was crawling for the next room. Once there, he threw himself onto a stuffed bear twice his size. And growled quite audibly.

"How are you?" Severus asked, now that he was watching her again.

"Alright. Settled. We are settled feeling, I suppose."

She led the way to her kitchen then.

"Money?" he asked as he followed.

"We were in Dumbledore's will, as you know. And there has been no shortage of sweaters from Molly," she joked. "My parents help out. Minerva put me in for a stipend from the Wizengamot..." she sighed.

"Good."

"It isn't money I am short of Severus," she told him pointedly once she had turned to face him again.

He looked away, and she let him. "We are fine, she wanted to say, but we would be so much better if you were with us."

"I like being a mother," Hermione assured him to fill the silence. "Especially his mother. He is a marvel. Really, so loving..."

"Yes, when he is not threatening to eat you up." Severus scoffed genially.

She stole a glance into the living room to check on the boy. "We should sit in there with him," she said Looking at Severus, she could see he was not the man he was before. Even his body language was different as he stepped to the counter and leaned against it with her to also watch Gundi through the doorway.

"Are you angry that I stayed away?" It had taken him months to see this from her side. To understand that especially with the child to take care of, she might have felt abandoned.

"Did you need to go? Was it quite necessary?"

"Yes. I..."

"Then, no, Severus. I'm not angry that you left."

The silence stretched on then, and she knew not to break it. She hoped Gundi would not as well. She waited. As patiently as she had waited the year of loving this man. She waited that little bit longer.

"Hermione..." he managed finally, low and doubting. He took the two steps to her and she wrapped her arms around him like she would never let go.

And as his head settled near her ear he whispered, "I love you." He swallowed hard and tried the unaccustomed words again. "I love you, Hermione. I'm sorry..."

"Shhh. I love you, too," she replied tightening her grasp. "Stay," she thought. "Please, tell me you will stay."

As they pulled back to look at each other, they pressed their palms together between them. He had one more thing to broach. One more hurtle. He looked at Gundi and then back at Hermione.

"Are you intent on staying here?"

"You mean living here, in Hogsmeade?" she asked.

He nodded.

"You don't want to teach," she surmised, as she cocked her head at him.

"Not for at least a year. We needn't work. I've money saved. I've a house. Or we could go and live on the moors. We could run an owl post apothecary." His voice seemed not his own.

"An owl post apothecary? On the moors?" she asked with a strange little laugh.

"Alastor was being flippant when he suggested it, but it is gaining a certain appeal with me. Still, I have no idea what you want. Your family and friends..."

"Can come visit me. And I can go visit them," she told him levelly.

"You would miss Hogshead? The shops?"

"I am a fairly solitary person, Severus. Not compared to you, perhaps," she mused. "But..."

"But ?" he prompted.

"Solitary," she assured him. "With the exception of needing you and Gundi with me." She laid a hand to his face as she spoke, as if to beg that that statement sink in.

He waited and nodded. He seemed to understand at last that she would define her life in those terms.

"Perhaps until I want to teach again then, we could... Here or abroad? But you will want..." His speech was uncharacteristically muddled.

"I'll want to continue my studies," she said finishing his thought.

"In?"

She laughed a bit nervously. "I don't really know. Do I have to know? "

"No."

She leaned into him then and kissed him.

"You pick somewhere hopefully not too horrible," he told her, "and we will go. So you can get your degree."

"I think I would like to do research. And write," she said sounding young and wistful.

"Research would be a natural extension of your inquisitive and tenacious nature."

"Tenacious?" she teased.

"Mmm," he said, now obviously considering their plans. "But Minerva will not thank you for depriving her of a potions professor for the foreseeable future," he joked.

"She will forgive me. ... If I tell her it's because we are getting married."

She held her breath and waited for his reaction.

"That would soften the blow. I agree." Still, his head was bowed and his expression hidden. He seemed intent on tracing her fingers and watching the way their hands worked together.

"You agree?" she asked, quickly. "To what? What are you agreeing to?"

He tried to ward it off, but a satisfied smirk worked at him.

"The world needs a happy Minerva McGonagall. And think of it... All you have to do is..."

"All I have to do?" she prompted.

"Is marry me," he said quite seriously.

"Yes. I will."