Notes: I received a bit of crit on this bit when it was first posted that I strongly agreed with, but, after much wibbling, have decided not to make the change... Feel free to play the guessing game.

As always, I thank thehalflie for her time and patience in putting up with my and my scribbles.

After a nerve-wracking morning, the funeral almost came as a relief. Severus had spent it watching Hermione harden over, weaving control around herself until she had a shield that could almost pass for normal. If her eyes glittered a bit more than usual, and she held herself so rigidly that he thought she might snap, he wasn't about to remark on it; at least she was trying. From his seat in the back pew, he could see her staring directly in front of her, eyes dry and empty. Her hand slid up and down Hugo's back in an absent gesture of comfort and he drew nearer to his mother, settling against her shoulder. On Hermione's other side, Molly dabbed at her eyes as Arthur's eulogy brought on new waves of grief.

There hadn't been enough left of the body to have an open-casket—the awry spell had ensured that—which was a small comfort. He recalled the service for his mother—the memory of her absolute stillness and the groomed features that had been so washed-out in life was enough to make him shudder. That had been the first time he had seen what she must have looked like before the abuses and disappointments of life had covered her face in a thin film that refused be scrubbed off. Even then, he hadn't thought her beautiful, but it had seemed to him that she looked serene, in a way that she had never seemed in life.

Before then, he had never felt tempted to believe in an afterlife; the sudden thought that his mother was happier dead made him wish that the the possibility had never occurred to him. The ornate urn on display, surrounded by bouquets of fragrant flowers charmed against wilting, made the service more bearable. Ashes couldn't sit up without warning, irrefutably announcing a false diagnosis.

The blinding flash of a camera as the speech ended forced his eyes away from the grieving family to the far side of the room, where a Daily Prophet reporter crouched, scribbling notes and directing his photographer. Severus didn't need to wait to know what would be printed the next morning; Hermione's constant refusal to court the press had made her unpopular, and the complete lack of expression on her face would easily remain fodder for months to come.

She hadn't heard a word of the eulogy. If she had allowed herself to absorb the words, let the full weight of them sink in, she wouldn't be able to maintain her facade long enough to avoid a public breakdown. As it was, she had to clutch her purse to mask the shaking of her hands, and allow her son to guide her away from the pew and past the urn, placing a single stem of orchids—Ron had been allergic to roses, so it seemed foolish to remember him with them—before it.

Her chest tightened as Hugo held the door open for her, and her vision was momentarily flooded by sunlight.

What's the worst that can happen? she remembered Ron asking her, challenging her at the memorial service for her mother. If you cry, it'll only make them think you're human.

But she hadn't wanted to be human that day, just as she wasn't certain she wanted to now. She wanted to transcend her grief, even if only for the moment, and hover above this disaster until someone else stepped in and swept it up. If she allowed herself to be caught up in it, she might not be able to move on.

A second passed where she believed that it was possible—a glorious second where she was suddenly free to breathe as she returned to the numbness of the previous night—but the sight of Celeste twining her hand into Rose's and whispering something that made her smile—no, not smile, laugh—even as tears glittered on her cheeks, brought her crashing down to earth. She no longer had someone to tease smiles out of her with inappropriate and usually offensive jokes. She might never have that again.

The heel of her shoe caught on the step, and she felt someone grab her elbow to steady her. The whiff of cologne told her that it was Severus before he opened his mouth to ask if she was all right, even before she turned her head to thank him.

"Just a few more hours, and then you can go home and wallow," he told her. "You've sat through much longer Ministry meetings without flinching, and those are pretty awful."

The corners of her mouth twitched in spite of herself. "That's true."

"And at least there will be food at the Burrow."

She wasn't hungry in the least, but she nodded her agreement anyway.

"You may also want to consider finding a handkerchief and dabbing your eyes with it every so often. The reporters are starting to get a nasty gleam in their eyes that can only mean bad things."

"Like comparing me to a preying mantis? I may have slightly bulbous eyes, bit last time I checked, I wasn't a cannibal." The sharpness in her tone frightened her—she hadn't wanted to snap at him—but the patience in his expression was infuriating.

"I know that, but they don't."

She had to admit that he had a point. "Can I borrow yours, then?"

With a heavy sigh that suggested he suspected what she was about to do, he held his handkerchief out and tightened his lips—she was unsure whether it was a smile or a grimace—as she made a show of blowing her nose and offered it back to him. "You can keep it if you like," he said. "You might need it again."

"That takes what little joy I could manage to feel out of this situation." It hadn't; their verbal sparring was making her feel slightly more cheerful.

His hand tightened on her arm again, and looked at him sharply. His face had become visibly tense as he stared at a spot somewhere past her right shoulder, and a stab of guilt hit her as she contemplated her glib statement.

"Will you be all right Apparating?" he asked, and relief washed over her. She had nearly left part of her kneecap behind that morning.

"Would you mind if I came side-along? I don't know if I'm quite up to it."

The first time that he had made her laugh had been when he explained the miracle of his survival. He had remarked dryly on the Aurors, who had managed to be in the right place at the right time for what was possibly the first time since the department had been created, and felt a strange fizz of something when she tossed her head back and a surprisingly deep, throaty sound burst out. Even when she was no longer laughing, her eyes had danced, teasing him with the idea that he could be entertaining and witty.

So he had made another joke—weak, but she had humoured him—and another, and then another after that, until both of them had slid off of the beds, shaking and gasping for breath in the face of abdominal pain. He had been filled with the sudden urge to keep her laughing, as though it would somehow chase away the snake-infested nightmares that still haunted him three years after the fact.

When she caught her breath, she said, "So, things have certainly improved for you, then. I don't remember ever seeing you crack a smile before now."

"The wonders of working for someone who doesn't expect one to kill people for his sake."

The wry twist of her mouth told him that she understood the double meaning of the statement. "I thought that was part of what Unspeakables did."

He snorted. "Kill people? Trust me, it's far more mundane than that."

"But you still can't tell me?"

"Not in specific terms, no."

"Broad ones?" Her eyes were hopeful, and even though she had already told him that the attempted infiltration of his department was the Patil girl's idea, he realised that she had gone along with the plan wholeheartedly.

In spite of his better judgement, which was reminding him about things like remaining employed and paying bills, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I trust that this won't make it past you?"

"I can be discreet occasionally."

"I'm sure that you can."

"Are you planning to tell me, or will you just keep taunting me with the information?"

The brightness in her eyes taunted him, teasing him with the prospect of another laugh. With that possibility in mind there were few options. "It's research," he said. "The other departments come up with ideas and someone hands them off to us to test. The veil was an experiment gone so wrong that no one is sure how to eliminate it without sucking the entire continent into a vortex."

"A comforting thought."

"Indeed."

There were many details that he didn't tell her just then: that it was the kind of work that had always fascinated him, that the possibility of a fatal accident didn't scare him—and that he wasn't afraid was worrisome—and that for the first time that he could remember, he was content. Not happy, but, then, he had never expected that. They were all details that he wouldn't need to tell her; her cleverness extended to the ability to cut through his defences—Occlumency included—and feed his emotions back to him in words that flashed a torch at his insecurities and sent them running.

That he didn't need to explain himself to her was the second thing that put him in danger—her intelligence was the first.

When she had burst into his office the Monday after the retreat, it had been moderately surprising, although not unpleasant. She tottered in on heels that looked as though they were threatening to snap, hair tied back haphazardly, setting down her paper cup of coffee and purse on a filing cabinet as she paused to catch her breath.

"I think that I've got it worked out," she said, sitting down in the chair that he reserved for Unspeakable miscreants who required discipline without waiting for an invitation.

"I didn't realise that the location of my office was so commonly known," he replied.

"It isn't, but I have my ways."

"Your ways being Evan Danielson, the Unspeakable currently assigned to the problem of refugee camps for Siberian trolls, who purchased your coffee at approximately eight-sixteen this morning?"

"Something like that," she said, and he was gratified with a giggle. "Look, I spent most of last night reading up on the theory that we discussed about using boomslang venom to counteract that of other snakes, and I think that I might have found a way to apply it."

He had been shuffling through papers at his desk, trying to find where he had scribbled down the time of his meeting with Shacklebolt, but with those words he froze. "What, in one night?"

Her cheeks turned pink and she bit her lip, looking down. "Well... yes. I was considering what you said about stabilising the unrelated compounds in the venom that would react when they came into contact with oxygen, and I thought that I try some arithmantic calculations to see if anything came up. Your idea was right, by the way—I just worked out the ingredients that would work best."

It occurred to him that even if the idea hadn't been purely hers, it didn't detract from the value of her discovery. While he had taken the theory out of the book and extrapolated, she had taken the idea and run with it with the goal of creating something useful.

"Have you tested it yet?"

Some of the uncertainty dropped out of her face as she realised that he was willing to extend the camaraderie of the weekend to the present. "I haven't had a chance yet—there's no place to keep potions equipment in my flat—but I thought that you ought to see it, as it was your idea."

She held out the sheets of paper covered in her calculations, and it only took a moment of skimming to understand their complexity—arithmancy had never been his strong suit, and he doubted that he could have kept track of the different possibilities presented by the results.

"I used some basic Muggle chemistry to check my results," she added, "so I doubt that the last two pages will make any sense to you."

He nodded, combing through the pages a second time, and raising his eyebrows at her suggested ingredients and their proportions. She caught sight of the look, and winced. "Did I miss something?"

Failing to keep the surprise out of his tone, he said, "No, not at all. It's just—the powdered bicorn horn and the acromantula web were to be expected, but I would have never worked out the scarab beetle."

Her grin caught him off guard. "I'm sure you would have eventually—the calculations are straightforward enough, you just need to make sure that you tweak the results so that the useful bits of the venom aren't being neutralised."

"Miss Granger," he said, flipping through the pages with bewilderment, "I can't even make it through the first page without feeling the delicate beginnings of a migraine. However, the chemistry calculations look as though you're right."

"But you told us in third year that a good arithmancer was necessary in developing potions."

"Which is why it was so fortunate that Septima Vector was one of the few hires that Albus Dumbledore made on the basis of merit." He lined the pages up and handed them back to her. "Lily Evans was also rather adept, which enabled me to invent spells whilst all the other students were still struggling with wand motions."

The enthusiasm on her face had lessened as he spoke, and by the time he finished, she looked thoroughly miserable. "You're not going to test them, then?"

He hadn't recalled saying anything to that effect, and he could feel the bewilderment rise up until it became visible. "Of course I am."

"But you just gave me the data—"

"Well, you'll need to be there, won't you?"

"Oh," she said, eyes widening. "Yes. I suppose that would make sense."

It had been the beginning of an unspoken partnership, in which he talked through a theory with her, she returned with applications for the theory, and they spent at least two evenings a week locked in the basement of the Department of Mysteries with a cauldron and some old cooking knives, arguing over the best way to chop up ingredients. It was to her credit as an arithmancer and his as an experienced brewer able to recognise a bad idea before it reached the work table that there were only three explosions in the first year.

The first had occurred when Hermione took it into her head that Wolfsbane would be more practical in pill form, "with small and discreet packaging—you know, like birth control." He hadn't known, and the thought of what she was doing with Ronald Weasley to require contraception had infuriated him to the point that he had tossed in the shredded aconite before the fluxweed, and they had been immediately showered in—fortunately inert—liquid.

Hermione only had a week to gloat before she had created her own disaster, even if Severus inadvertently brought it about. He had been mocking her about her recently reinstated relationship with Weasley—as had rapidly become his way—and she was shooting back equally sharp remarks, chopping up Chinese Chomping Cabbage with vicious intent until she neatly sliced her baby finger. Within seconds, their taunting war had devolved into an argument over whose fault it was, and when she stood to place herself at a more equal height, some of the blood dripped into the cauldron. This time, the potion had been corrosive, but after the mishap of the previous week, they had had the foresight to don protective clothing and ward the room against any sort of damage: it wouldn't do at all for the Ministry to discover their extracurricular experiments because of a bit of carelessness on their part.

The Ministry generally didn't approve of its employees using its resources for private research projects.

The third explosion hadn't occurred until six months later, but blame wasn't so easily assigned to that one. It had started with a blazing row—which, if he were to be perfectly honest, he had started after she had broken the news of her engagement—and ended with their mouths fastened on one another's, Hermione backed up against the concrete wall. His memory was a bit fuzzy on the bits that came in between, but he felt certain that there had been some awkward fumbling, because the top of his robes was unbuttoned and her shoulder was partially exposed.

"Oh, God," she said, placing her hands out as a barrier between them. "Oh, God, I can't believe that I... I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

He took a step back and tried to calm his ragged breathing. "I know. I wasn't trying to..."

"Of course you weren't."

"No, I wasn't."

But the truth was that he had wanted to—still wanted to, Weasley and any sense of decency be damned. The desire curling in his stomach was joined by guilt, which seemed to wrap itself around his organs and tug until he felt nauseous. She didn't want him; she wanted Weasley, and he had to accept that. Painful as it was to see her in love with him, he knew with sudden clarity that it was worlds better than losing her altogether.

"... and I know that after, well, that, this is going to sound ridiculous, and you're going to hate the idea..."

"The idea of what?" he asked, trying to keep the weight of his epiphanies from his voice.

"I'd really like you to come to the wedding," she replied, glancing at him with trepidation. "I realise that most of the people who will be there think that you're dead, but... I'm going to be scared out of my mind and having you there will help, I think."

He was saved from having to answer immediately by the cauldron relieving itself of its contents.

He watched her from the other side of the room, lurking behind a glass of water as he balanced a plate of food on his lap. Molly's cooking was less satisfying than usual, although whether it was because her heart hadn't been in it or because his appetite had disappeared, he wasn't entirely certain. Watching Hermione hide behind laughter as she chatted with a colleague was painful, especially since he knew the nuances of her laugh so well; her eyes didn't normally glitter with suppressed tears, and the sound wasn't usually this harsh, as though it was being forcibly dragged from her diaphragm, catching on its way through her throat. It made his heart pound in his ears to see the colleague—whom he had met on multiple occasions, but whose name eluded him—ignoring such obvious signs. Everything in her body language screamed grief, yet there he was, discussing the speed limits of brooms as though they had met near the water cooler at work.

"She's so brave." Severus jerked in surprise, noting that Padma Patil had sat next to him when he had been lost in thought. "In her position, I'm not sure that I would have made it to the funeral."

The image of a suitcase, not fully packed, flashed across his mind briefly, but he didn't speak of it. A silent agreement had passed between him and Hermione that morning when she had seen that he had stowed her luggage out of sight.

"Even the thought of losing Greg makes me freeze up," she went on, twisting a long lock of hair absently around a finger, "but she's so..."

"Calm?" Severus suggested, poking at a potato with his fork.

"Exactly. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that she's in pain, but she's still functioning in spite of it."

"Indeed."

They sat in companionable silence for a moment, observing Hermione, before Padma added, "You do realise that it's your job to look after her now, don't you? She won't let anyone else close enough."

The wedding hadn't been the grand affair that he imagined it would be. There had been a grand total of twenty-three guests, including him, virtually no ceremony, and the banquet had consisted of fruit and cheese platters served al fresco. Hermione had insisted on gradually reintroducing him to society, so that he wouldn't pop up out of nowhere at the wedding, causing the elderly guests—and perhaps Harry—to suffer from heart attacks. Molly had seemed to be in the middle of one, given that she had been forced to exclude relatives from the guest list at Hermione's behest, and wasted no time in finding his elbow so that she could hover and rant.

Her sister's cousins-in-law would never forgive her, Fleur's family had been mortified, and Severus didn't much care, because he was too busy staring at Hermione.

She had made him promise in advance that any discussion of radiant brides was strictly forbidden, as she had the feeling that she would be closer to being terrified than overjoyed, and he had sworn, half-jokingly, that the words would not cross his lips. However, he had made no such promises about his thoughts, and was allowed to think anything he liked, even if radiance was included.

And, despite all of the deliberate attempts to avoid conventionality—no white clothing, because it lent itself too easily to grass stains to be functional for an outdoor wedding; no roses, because it wouldn't do to have the groom sneezing throughout the ceremony; none of the formal vows of the Wizarding world—she was. She was dressed in light blue robes formal enough to suggest that she was taking this seriously, but no more. Oddly enough, it didn't clash with Weasley's hair, only emphasised the red and made it seem as though they had considered all of the possible ways that the day could result in horrible photographs, and then made plans to avoid them—which Severus didn't doubt had been the case.

The vows served to give him insight into why Weasley appealed to her, and, difficult as it was to admit, they did complement each other. Hermione had tried to explain how he had grown since the war ended, but he hadn't fully believed it until he heard the words coming from the man's mouth; he spoke an amusing combination of lighthearted jokes and touching remarks that nearly had Severus nodding along in agreement. There might not be sparks shooting off between them, but there was ample strong affection and partnership to tie them together—a steadiness that would keep Hermione grounded.

He swallowed once in an attempt to dislodge the lump from his throat, trying not to think of himself as Hermione began her speech.

The guests were beginning to trickle out of the Burrow, tucking their hands into their spouses' and clinging to each other with something akin to fear—a combination of sorrow and the terror of being alone. Hermione stayed to thank everyone for coming, apparently sincere, although he could sense her brittle layering start to crack when she fetched him from his corner.

"I don't think that I can handle going home right now," she said, sitting next to him and pressing her side up against his arm. Even through layers of clothing, he could tell that she was cold.

"I have a bottle of wine that I've been saving," he said. "This may sound completely inappropriate, but if you think that it might help..."

"That sounds heavenly. I think that anything will help just now." For what was barely an intake of breath, she let her mask slip and he saw the desperation that she had been hiding; it was far more powerful than he had expected.

"Will Rose and Hugo be all right alone?"

Her mouth twisted as her face smoothed over, effectively cutting him off from her thoughts. "Rose is staying with Celeste, and I told Hugo that he had my full permission to do whatever was necessary for a decent shag, even if it involves the trashiest club in London. You're stuck with me—I promise that I'll try not to be too weepy."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "You're allowed to be weepy, you know. I doubt that I'll hold it against you."

"I know," she said. "I'm just not sure I know how."

They had barely made it through the first bottle of wine, when Severus opened another. "You'll need it," he said, setting it on the floor in front of them to allow it to breathe.

"I don't doubt it."

They way that she clutched the glass, gripping it as though it anchored her to the present, wasn't lost on him, just as he saw without remarking the way that she tucked her knees close to her chest defensively, as though the position would somehow keep her grief at bay. Absently, he rested a hand on her shin and rubbed it. The drinks were starting go to his head, making him drop the barriers that he had constructed around himself.

"You know what I was thinking about today?" she asked, and he made a noncommittal sound to indicate that he was listening. "The experiments we used to run. We had some brilliant ideas before we started making money off of them."

"As always seems to be the case," he said, chuckling. He momentarily wondered if she ever thought about the kiss in their makeshift laboratory, and all of the possibilities that might have spun out of it, but knew better than to ask.

"Why did we stop?"

He picked up the bottle and refilled their glasses to avoid answering immediately. "You had Rose to worry about, and that was about the time that the Department of Mysteries had come under international scrutiny."

"That's right—didn't they think that all the secrecy was unnecessary?"

"I think that the Daily Prophet accused us of experimenting on small children," he reminded her. "Anyway, there was a great deal of paperwork and very little time to do anything else."

"But you managed to find the time to look after Rose for me," she said. "Which Ron..."

She let her voice trail off as she stared absently into the fire, adjusting her grip on the glass. The faint scent of smoke mingled with the taste of wine on his tongue was comfortable and familiar, although he had the feeling that he should be anything but comfortable when her life had been so thoroughly uprooted.

"I'm thinking about finding something new," she said after a moment. "I realise that I've only been department head for a few years, but I'm already bored. I thought that there would be things to do and laws to change, but I've run out of ideas—really, I've been running off of the same ideas since I was eighteen, and now that I've seen them fulfilled, I don't know what to do with myself."

"What do you have in mind?" Another sip of wine. "Anything?"

"No," she said, sighing. "I applied for six months of paid leave last month, and they owled me a few days ago to let me know it had been approved. I had every intention of taking it then, but then Ron... well, you know, and I don't think I can face that much time alone with nothing to distract me."

"You're scattering the ashes tomorrow?"

She nodded, swirling her wine and keeping her face hidden behind her hair. "Charlie..." Her voice broke, but she cleared her throat and tried again. "Charlie couldn't make it back for the service, so we decided to hold off until tomorrow. I'd ask you to come, but it's going to be Harry, me, and a giant crowd of Weasleys, so I doubt that you would enjoy it."

"You're probably right."

There was another moment of silence before Hermione set down her glass and stood up, swaying slightly. "I need a glass of water. Shall I bring you one as well."

He shook his head and watched her walk towards the kitchen, feet dragging slightly, as though her exhaustion was more than she had accounted for. A moment passed without the water starting, then another, and when he was certain she wouldn't return soon, he stood to follow.

She was standing over the kitchen sink, an empty glass on the counter in front of her, and thought he couldn't see her face, he knew by the silent trembling of her shoulders that she was crying. Even as a lump formed in his own throat, he felt relief that she was finally allowing herself to grieve.

"Hermione?"

She turned to face him, wiping the tears away with her hands. "I'm all right. Sorry, I'm just..."

Her voice faltered a second time, taken over by a hiccoughing sob that flung her upper body forward and forced her to double over. A fresh flood of tears followed, and he pulled her into his arms, willing to wait as long as necessary for the fit to subside.

"You're allowed to cry," he whispered as she half-wailed an apology into his shoulder. He would have to wash the shirt before wearing it again, but that was hardly the point.

When it became clear that they would be there for a while, he guided her down until they were sitting against the cabinets, Hermione tucked under his arm as she sucked in huge gulps of air in an attempt to calm herself. When the sobs finally stopped, she hung limply in his arms, head resting against his sodden shoulder.

She awoke to find herself firmly tucked into a bed that wasn't hers, the smell of frying eggs and sausage hovering in the air, teasing her into full consciousness. It took another moment to realise that this was Severus' room and that she was still dressed—with that came the knowledge that Ron was dead. It hurt a little less than it had the previous morning, but it was still the painful twist of a knife in her chest. A pain that her senses were numbing themselves to, but a pain nonetheless.

It should hurt, she thought, burrowing down into the warmth. But in time it would fade to little less than a twinge, the way that the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse could be a little stiffness in the joints years after the fact. She had learned to live with that kind of pain, and she could live with this as well. The funeral had been the hardest part—the first step in a long process—and, though she knew that scattering the ashes wouldn't be easy, it would give her the closure that listening to eulogies couldn't.

She wouldn't be able to say that Ron would have wanted his remains to be blown along the beach at the seaside resort where they had holidayed nearly every summer for the last fifteen years, because they had never discussed funeral plans, but it was the first thing that had sprung to mind, and she knew that she would find it comforting—which, she suspected, was the most important thing. Ron was gone; she had to take what comfort that she could.

Another minute passed before the smell of impending breakfast drove her from bed, stretching as she wandered out into the hall, then to the kitchen, where Severus was flipping eggs out of the pan and onto a plate.

"Good morning," she said. "Please tell me that I get some of those, because I just realised that I hardly ate anything yesterday and I'm absolutely famished."

"You slept well, then?" He passed the plate to her, then went in search of cutlery.

"I did, although I am terribly sorry about last night. I think I ruined your shirt."

"Nothing that a judiciously applied charm won't remove," he said, shrugging and sliding a fork across the table to her.

"I've decided to take the leave," she said, accepting it and using it to tear her sausage apart in a rabid quest of hunger. "Just now. Life is too short not to, and I might find something that catches my fancy more than running a department. And if I don't, at least I'll have time to enjoy myself—life is far too short not to."

The light streaming through the window caught his face in a new way—or maybe it was the way that the quirk of his lips, slight as it might be, reached his eyes—and something slid into place. The way that he looked at her—had looked at her for the past thirty years, with mingled hope and resignation—made sense for the first time, and it was as though she could see through his enigmatic layers for the first time. He drew back, as though sensing what she was able to see and wanting to hide, then took half a step forward so that she could examine him more closely.

A hesitant smile spread carefully across her face, although her eyes were still as wide and sad as ever. She reached her hand across the table, curling it gently around his fingers and squeezing once, a gesture meant to reassure him. She wasn't quite ready to act on what she saw—she wouldn't be for a long time—but she could recognise it and let him know that perhaps, one day, after the mourning had stopped and the last of the ashes lost themselves in the ocean, she would be ready.

"Thank you," she whispered.