A/N: Crazy night at work! Here is the end, have fun!

Chapter Seventeen

Their parting the following day was slightly awkward as it was a first experience for both. Parting as lovers, but still living in the same building. They were both uncertain how the other would react when they met together in public, but they were both pretty discreet individuals, she figured.

Hermione went back to scheduling a few interviews from eager publications and to set up a book signing at Flourish and Blotts. She really felt like she was making a name for herself—her own name, not part of a third. Perhaps this was what she was meant to do with her life after school and after the war. She could be an author. She always had been a part of someone else's stories.

First she had been a companion for Harry and Ron. She spent her school years as the brains behind the plan, content to stay in the shadows. After, she was offered the opportunity to revise her favourite book, her manual, her wizarding Bible. The book that started it all. And again, she was content to stay out of the limelight and tell someone else's story. Later, Hermione found out she was a Godmother. Again, she was a part of the tale of others, granting their wishes and creating their dreams. It's where she was happiest and content. As Dobby had taught her, she was learning and willing to serve.

Her greatest asset had always been her mind, and any of her teachers would say she had a gift and love of the quill. Hermione would push the book and see what new opportunities opened for her.

Until then, the children were going home, the castle would be free and she could devote more time to figuring out what was going to happen with Severus.

Severus spent the rest of his day locked in his room. Today some of the students would make a half-hearted effort to wish him goodbye and he didn't care to hear it. His worst fear was that Hermione would be among them, so he chose to hide, even knowing it wouldn't change reality.

Though nothing overt had happened that made him believe she was the kind to love and leave, something in him felt as though they were incomplete still, even with the night they had shared, and he had himself believing that it was because she wasn't meant to be his like he wished she was.

The next morning after the train rolled out for the final time that school year, with gleeful children waving at the school they were leaving behind, Hermione walked up to Severus on the platform.

"Looking for someone? I think they've all left."

It was worth the day of silence from him just to watch him jump at her words. The sneaky, sinister Professor Snape could be startled? She never would have believed it.

"Don't you belong on that train?" he asked, his voice drawling over the words.

"I couldn't go," she told him, looking up into his eyes. "There was no way I could leave this library again."

"Minx," he told her, grabbing her hand as they walked off the platform and up to the castle.

"Are you okay with my staying? It was kind of impulsive. We never really discussed it last night,"
she said shyly.

"Which part of last night?" he asked with a wicked grin, suddenly feeling lighter than he had in years with this witch by his side.

She reached over and playfully smacked him with her free arm. "Any of it. All of it. Mostly my being a Godmother, where we go from here. I'm going to be public. That's going to create a bit of chaos at times, I imagine, but I just don't think I can keep doing this in secret my whole life, and I'm not willing to give it up."

"I wouldn't expect you to. It's who you are."

"I don't expect you to change either," she said as she led them inside the castle.

He snorted at her.

"I'm serious," she told him. "I like the brooding, dark, irritable, snarky professor that you are. You're brilliant, you're brave, you're loyal, and you're a great friend to me. I enjoy your company."

He was caught up once again by her words. Never had anyone spoken so plainly and so highly of him. He had known her long enough to know she wouldn't lie about something like this. In fact, he knew she was a terrible liar to begin with, but it was still a shock to hear that someone wanted to be with him with no ulterior motives.

She led him down a long, unused corridor until he finally asked their destination. "You'll see," is all she told him, but when they reached their final end, Hermione found that the previously cracked door was now shut tight with no chance of budging.

"But this is where my fountain is!" she told him in a panic. "It's always been open for me!"

"Perhaps it's open only for you," he told her, ever the voice of wisdom but it didn't feel right to her.

"I was sure it would let you in," she told him. "I feel like you're my other half. Rejecting you feels like rejecting me too."

"Let's go check your book," he told her. "Maybe it has something."

"I love you, Severus," she told him suddenly. "No one has ever offered to go look through books with me."

"That's because your friends are twits," he said with a haughty smile, leading her back to his room.

~~HGSS~~

"It doesn't really say anything," she said, dejected, as she closed the book. "It talks more about the mirror and the fountain but I don't see how that helps me."

"What mirror?" he asked.

"The Mirror of Erised. The fountain is the Fountain of Erised. They are kind of magical twins. Well, like a yin and a yang. Different things can happen when you bring together the mirror and the fountain. It's all about reflection, introspection, and understanding. The best Godmothers work in tandem with the guardian of the Mirror."

"I'm the guardian of the Mirror," he stated.

Her hands covered her mouth as he walked to the wall near his armoire and pulled the lever that revealed the mirror.

"Oh my goodness," she whispered. She walked over to the mirror and frowned. "But I thought it's supposed to show you your innermost desire? Harry said he saw his family in the mirror, and Ron saw himself with a bunch of awards."

"What do you see?" he asked her softly, standing beside her.

"I just see the two of us, standing in your bedroom," she told him.

He touched her hand. "That's all I see too...now."

Her breath hitched. "What did you see before?"

"You know what I saw, when I was your age. For a long time, it's just been a swirl of vagueness. Nothing distinctive. Until now," Severus told her, his voice raw.

He squeezed her hand again and she squeezed back. A tingle raced down her palm, through their clasped hands and up his arm, causing them both to look at each other instead of their reflections.

"What do you think this means?"

"I think," he said, hesitating, "that it means our magic knew something long before we did. And I think it means that the incomplete feeling I've felt has been filled now."

"You felt it too?" she asked him apprehensively. "I thought it was just me. I was afraid, after last night, when I still didn't feel complete that it's because you didn't feel the same as me. But I decided to throw caution to the wind-"

"No surprises there."

"-and stay to meet with you at the train. It seems as though our magic has been conspiring to make us realize something we didn't, and may never have."

"Even your magic likes to meddle," he told her, though she knew the sarcasm in his tone was a front.

"Come on," she said, leading him to the door. "Let's try again."

She kept a hold of his hand again and they walked through the castle. She reflected on that day almost a year ago when she first informed him she would be staying. He didn't seem to mind as much this time around.

As they rounded the corner, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the door partially cracked open.

They walked through the door, pushing it open a little more to allow them to pass. Snape took in the lovely interior courtyard, much more cared for than when Hermione had first found it. She had never been much of a green thumb, but she took some time when she needed a break from her books to do a little weeding and trimming of the hedges. A few of her favourite flowers were planted here and there in the flower beds to give it her own personal touch.

She never knew that all the other plants had been planted by the previous generations of Godmothers. There was little rhyme or reason to the garden, just lots of love and care.

The trickle of water came to them as they walked closer to the fountain. Hermione sat on the edge and encouraged Severus to do the same. She picked up a few coins to show him, but when he tried to pick up one on his own, his hand just ghosted through the pool.

"Did you have a coin in the pool?" he asked and she nodded.

"Though it might be gone now. I'll have to check when I go back to my room. It was odd, finding it there. I can't really answer my own wish, now can I?"

"I don't see why not," he said matter-of-factly. "People do every day, don't they? What happened when there was no one here to help do it for them? Were wishes just not granted?"

She conceded his point but it still seemed odd to have a coin with her name on it on her shelf.

"You had a coin too," she told him.

"I imagine I did," he told her, taking his hand back and resting it on his own leg.

She felt him begin to withdraw and reached out to him. "It was pretty similar to mine. I wonder if they are both gone now. I didn't try to fulfil it, you know. Yours or mine. So don't think that I'm here as some kind of misguided attempt to be a friend to you or something because of what I am. The magic calls me to a coin, and lets me know when it's time to work on it. It never directly pulled me to you."

"Only indirectly," he said, his face relaxing a little as she threaded her fingers through his.

"Yes, only indirectly."

As they stood up to leave, she stood on her toes and kissed him softly. "Thank you for visiting with me."

"Well, I showed you mine," he said. "It's only fair you showed me yours."

"Naughty," she whispered before kissing him again.

As they stood inside the little walled garden, kissing in front of the ancient stone fountain, the final tattoos glittered on Hermione's back and shimmered together once, completing the design.

Hermione felt the shudder down her spine and a strange awareness came over her. It was like she had a new extension of herself. Pulling back from Severus, who did not appear pleased, she tried to look over her shoulder.

"Severus! What is it?" she exclaimed.

He turned her around and began to laugh, a deep rich sound Hermione loved to hear. "I think I found the fairy part of your magic."

"What?"

"You have wings," he told her and fluttered them gently. "Your butterfly tattoo is finished, it looks like, and they are actually a set of magical wings."

"Can I fly with them?" she asked, feeling behind her to touch her mostly corporeal wings.

He shrugged. "How would I know? Give it a try."

"But how?" she whinged.

He rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake. Just think a happy thought or something."

Hermione screwed up her face, picturing all of her granted wishes that had culminated in her discovering Severus. She felt lighter until she was touching the ground with only her toes, then she panicked and fell down hard on the heels of her feet.

"You have plenty of time to practice," Severus told her.

Hermione was still a little shaken and asked Severus how he had learned to fly.

"Found out about that, did you? Minerva can't keep anything a secret," he said with a petulant tone. It must have been hard living with someone who saw herself as his mother for almost his whole life. "Most people think I was taught by the Dark Lord, since he had the skill, and I was his favourite for a while. But I actually figured it out while I was headmaster. During a raid, my broom was destroyed midair, and I just hung there. I practiced later on until I could fly at will. I'm not entirely sure when I received the skill."

Hermione had the look on her face that showed the gears working in her mind. "I wonder if you received it as a power when you became the guardian of the mirror. It would make sense, wouldn't it? Since mine is because of the fountain?"

"It would. And do you know what those tattoos are yet?" he asked.

"I do," she told him. "They are all wishes," she kissed him, "that lead up," she kissed him again, "to this. Each wish was one of the stepping stones that lead me from where I was right to you. I must be where I should be now."

"I think you are," he agreed, and they headed inside.

~~HGSS~~

A few months later, Hermione was living primarily at Grimmauld place so as not to overstay her welcome in the castle when she received another book offer.

Her revision of Hogwarts: a History was becoming wildly popular. Not just because of her status as a war heroine, but because she had dared to tread into territory previously uncovered. The house-elves, the history of Muggleborns in the school, and the favouritism shown in each of the houses were just part of it. The new information spread through the community like wildfire, beyond Hermione's wildest dreams, and the copies were selling like one of the potions Severus starting marketing in his new-found free time.

It was then only a partial surprise when the new offer came in. Her publisher now wanted her to make a complete account of the second war with Voldemort. "The Uprising" they were calling it.

They wanted her to make a book telling the whole story. The real story. That which wasn't washed, scrubbed, and censored before being put in the Daily Prophet. They wanted to know why the students had left school, how they foiled the plots each year, and whose side Snape was really on.

She brought the offer immediately to Severus and asked his opinion. As in-between bouts of mind-blowing sex, Hermione would remember they were both fairly intelligent and rational creatures.

"Someone is going to tell the story, Hermione," he told her, pulling up a pant leg after their latest bout. "Do you want someone to write a story about you or do you want to be the one doing the writing?"

That clinched it for her. No way did she trust a story of this magnitude and importance to someone who hadn't lived each day on the frontlines. She wanted to see if she could make it as an author. Here was her chance.

"You're going to need some place to stay," he said. "Unless you plan on continuing with the dunderheaded duo and their twittering twits."

"Ginny and Lavender aren't that bad," she chastised. "But if I hear Won-Won again or walk in on Harry and Ginny in the shower, I'm going to puke. I've been looking for my own place, but..."

She trailed off, not really sure what to say. She wanted to tell him that she had been waiting to see what he was going to do before making a final decision. Did he want to live with her? Was he planning on teaching still?

"Minerva gave this to me to give to you," he told her in what seemed to be a non sequitur. Severus took an envelope out of the drawer in his desk and handed it to Hermione, who was seated beside his window overlooking the lake.

She gave him a confused look as she opened the letter. Scanning it over, she gasped and asked him, "Do you know what this says?"

"Of course I do," he told her with a smug nonchalance that was very Professor Snape.

"She wants me to become a laureate of Hogwarts. The author in residence."

"I know."

"I would live here on salary," she said, stunned.

"Yes."

"And I would be free to write about our history, with free access to the library."

"Sounds about right."

She suddenly realized he was still teasing her. "This is serious!" she exclaimed. "There hasn't been an author in residence in ages."

"Centuries, actually. I think the last was Emeric Switch but I could be mistaken. The position was abandoned for quite some time as the public eye turned to things like Quidditch and the Triwizard Tournament. Little thought was given to new literature. But your book has reawakened that, and Minerva felt it was time to dust off the old title and bestow it upon you."

"You'll be fine with me here all the time?"

"Minerva has already cleared a suite of rooms for us near the library."

"Us, is it?" she asked him with her eyebrow raised.

"She'll insist we get married," he threw out as though it were of no significance.

Hermione let out a dramatic sigh. "I suppose we'll have to placate her then."

"The old battle-axe."

"Severus?"

"Yes?"

Hermione leaned forward before brushing her fingers down his cheek in a soft caress. "Thank you. You've made all my wishes come true."

"And mine as well," he told her.

"Now take me to bed."

He smirked. "Your wish is my command."

~~HGSS~~

In the years that came, Hermione continued to write, eventually taking over the position of Professor of History of Magic. She and Severus set up a side business of wish fulfilment. Any wizard who met the criteria, namely the whim of Hermione's magic, could step in front of the Mirror of Erised to define their deepest wish, and Hermione's well would collect the wish for her to help achieve when the time was right. This was a finicky, and highly selective, and difficult process, but it had a perfect success rate.

Hermione and Severus were married before the next fall in the small courtyard with only Minerva as a witness.

The quarters they shared were not always peaceful. Occasionally shouting was heard in the hallways, but it was often followed by laughter. Sometimes they would wind each other up until the other leapt from the window into the night for a bit of a respite. But they always flew back.

The important thing was—They lived happily ever after.

A/N: I make tweak a bit of this tomorrow but for tonight, it will have to do.

Is there any wish you would like to see?