Disclaimer: Don't own, kay?

Things had been, more or less, peaceful the past two weeks in the Snape household. Harry and Ron had visited once more, with Ginny, of course, and Severus, though not going so far as to have another conversation with them, had been well behaved when he ran into them on his way to the bedroom from his office. Ginny had been down several more times without the boys, having volunteered to help Hermione plan the nursery.

They had settled on brown and silver for the colors for the room, but Ginny had managed to sneak a small stuffed lion into a basket Hermione had labeled "Baby Things". The room, which was proving no problem at all to add to their quarters—the castle really was the most ever evolving building Hermione had ever seen—and Dumbledore added a few protective charms over the room so that it would never disappear or move as the staircases often did.

The furniture was of dark mahogany that Severus indirectly selected. He had been the one to decide the bedroom furniture many years prior and Hermione had wanted a continuous feel between the two rooms. She decided that the best way to do this, beyond the continuing silver color, would be to match the wood tones. So, while he insisted often that the decisions about the nursery were up to Hermione, he never-the-less found himself tied more and more to the room, including a small water color print that Hermione found one day when searching for a new book to read among his ample shelving.

The print had been stuck sideways among the books, it's frame blending in with the spines of the slightly dusty books that lined the shelves. When Hermione found it she found it odd that a book would have a wooden spine, but chalked it up to wizarding customs she had yet to learn. Out of curiosity, she pulled the book from the shelf, expecting it to be quite ancient and possible written in the wizard equivalent of old English or the like. What she found was nothing near old English, or nothing near a book at all.

There was little about the painting that was remarkable when Hermione first found it, though after dusting it a bit, she did see something there that made the small picture special. It wasn't a large painting, and it wasn't ornate. It really probably couldn't have even been called a painting at all, as it was more calligraphy than anything. Within the frame there were two 's' letters, entwined and circling each other intricately. There was nothing serpent like about these letters, no matter how much one would think two entwining 's'es would resemble the animal. The background was a dark green, the letters a bright silver, colors to correspond with Severus' house, colors to predict the life he would lead. The back simply had 'Severus Snape' printed on it, and there was no indication of who had painted such a crest. Hermione found herself wondering about the creator of such a simple, yet elegant picture, wondering if this dabbling in paint was yet another secret of his that she hadn't yet discovered or if perhaps his mother, in a fit of loving pride, had crafted the painting for her only son. Hermione didn't yet know, but she did know that this picture, in its simple frame, would be the decoration hanging over her child's crib.

"Where did you get that?" Hermione jumped in the seat she had taken when she began looking over the painting. She hadn't expected Severus home from his night of patrolling the halls for at least another hour. She had become accustom to not sleeping until he came in on these later nights, which had been her entire reason behind searching for a new book to read.

She calmed herself and met the glare on her husband's face head on, "This?" she asked, turning the frame in her hands so that he could see the front and the double 's'.

"Yes, that. What else would I be asking about?"

"My nightgown, perhaps. It is new after all." She held up a corner of the somewhat flimsy article of clothing, which hid her burgeoning bump not at all, and smiled slowly, hoping to distract her husband from the issue at hand.

"The frame in your hands, not the nightgown," Severus responded in a tone of slight irritation. It had become a new favorite game of Hermione's to see how easily he could be distracted. It irritated him beyond imagine simply because he was rather easily distracted, or so he was finding.

"I found it on the bookshelf," Hermione explained casually, bringing the frame down to rest on her lap.

"I thought I threw it away years ago," Severus said with a quick shake of his head, as though trying to rid himself of the thought that he had been careless about something he had meant to do.

"I'm glad you didn't."

"And why, pray tell, would you be glad I didn't throw it away?"

"I want to use it in the nursery."

"You can't."

"And why not?"

"Because I said you can't."

"Severus Snape, you should know by now that kind of logic isn't logic at all and won't work on me."

"It works on everyone else." He said in a huff, still unable to accept the fact that Hermione wasn't 'everyone else' anymore.

"You'll have to come up with a better reason than 'because I said so', if you don't want me using it."

"Fine. Because the child's initials might not even be the same as mine. It wouldn't make any sense to use a double 's' picture over a child's bed whose name might not start with an 's'."

"Who painted it?" Hermione asked, suddenly, ignoring his second reason.

"It's not important."

"I'd like to know."

"I said it isn't important."

"If it isn't important then it shouldn't be a big deal to tell me."

"Hermione, it isn't important, stop asking."

"Just tell me who painted it, Severus. Tell me why you tried to hide it."

"My mother," he said quietly, almost menacingly, moving forward toward his still seated wife, and in one swift motion snatching the painting out of her hands. He took one look at the green and silver front and carelessly tossed the frame over his shoulder.

"Severus!" Hermione shrieked, when she heard the unmistakable sound of breaking, and stood, attempting to go to the picture and assess the damage but finding Severus in front of her, "Move," she demanded, trying to push him out of the way, but failing.

"Why can't you leave well enough alone?" he asked quietly, placing his hands on her upper arms and holding her in place. "We're going along, perfectly fine, and you have to do something! Why do you always seem to be challenging me?" Severus looked down at Hermione, genuine curiosity registering on his face.

"I was just looking for a book, Severus, just a book. I can't help it if your idea of hiding something is to store on your bookshelf were anyone could find it."

"No one found it for nearly 20 years and then you come along. If you hadn't…" he wasn't able to finish what he began before Hermione interrupted him.

"If I hadn't what? Gotten used to staying up until you came home? Hadn't needed something to read? Hadn't moved in? Hadn't married you?" She asked the last in a quiet voice that belied her hidden thoughts. She had, ever since they had been married, worried that Severus resented her for interrupting his bachelor lifestyle. He had seemed content to remain single for the rest of his life. He had had his one love, Lilly Potter, and he had seemed to come to terms with never loving again. Hermione was under no illusion. Severus might care for her, but he had never once said that he loved her. He had never done anything to make her feel unwelcome, aside from his previous habit of still referring to her by her maiden name, but Hermione had always had the nagging feeling that he resented her. She had kept the thoughts to herself, not even mentioning them to Ginny, but now she was slowly beginning to cry as she looked up at the man she had come to love, who she would have sworn on the life of her unborn child, didn't love her in return. "Guess what, Severus Snape," she forced out through slow moving tears and a nose that was already stuffing up, "you had to get married as well and I wasn't the one who did the asking." She jerked herself out of his hands and marched to the bedroom door, turning before she entered, "It's no more my fault than it is yours that we're in this marriage," she said forcefully, and then entered the room, slamming the door behind her.

A/n: So, this didn't end up exactly where I expected it to, but maybe that's a good thing. There's more angst in this chapter than I ever expected to write. I'm sorry if it seems implausible that he would get so upset over a small painting, but it makes sense to me that if he hated his childhood because of his father and his mother was the reason they had remained with his father, then he would have conflicting emotions about loving his mother and hating her for her decisions. Let me know what you thought about this chapter. We'll return to our regularly scheduled silly, lovely, fluffy chapters soon, I promise.

And p.s. can we just recognize the fact that I've now added three chapters in less than a week? That's a record for me. I mean, come on, I was the girl who didn't update for a year! And can I just say you're all awesome for sticking with me and this little story even though I'm crap at updating regularly?