We have finally come to the end, my lovely readers. Hopefully this wraps up all our loose ends into a nice big bow of squishy wonderfulness!

SS

Before I knew it, a year had gone by. We lived the kind of life I'd always wanted. Work was satisfying and pleasant. Our shared interests made us perfect companions during our free hours. And over time, Hermione became the most uninhibited, selfless, talented lover I'd ever had. There wasn't a single urge either of us had that we couldn't confide in the other and explore together. There wasn't a single thing I could have asked for...except...

I wanted Hermione to love me. I knew she cared for me, she showed me her adoration and respect every waking moment she spent with me. But it wasn't the same. I wanted her love. Undying, unconditional, unending love. I felt that for her. I fought against saying the words each night and each morning. I knew that if I pressed her, I could get her to say the words. But I wanted her to feel them with her whole heart. Not just because I'd saved her. Not residual emotion from a fantasy she'd concocted. But simply for me. I wanted her to see inside my black heart, to study my stained soul, and still decide I was who she loved. Who she wanted to spend her life with.

But how could I tell her that? If I admitted my feelings to her, she would feel bound by obligation to stay with me. She was nothing if not loyal. She would feel that she owed it to me because of what I'd done for her. That, I could not allow. She deserved to be free, to find someone she wanted to be with purely out of the desire of her heart.

Then, one sunny Monday morning, I got exactly what I wanted, with consequences I couldn't have expected.

We were sitting my the Black lake, Hermione throwing bits of shrimp to the giant squid she'd affectionately named Tom. She found it endearing that the beast seemed to loiter over our bedroom while we were busy in bed, and when I'd once called it a Peeping Tom, the nickname stuck.

"Do you believe in marriage?" she asked out of the blue. I froze, the book I'd been reading clutched in a death grip. Keeping my tone deliberately light, I studied her.

"I believe in marriage the same way I believe in sunshine or wool trousers. It exists, despite what anyone thinks of it." She threw a shrimp at me. I arched a brow and kept my face neutral as it hit me between the eyes and fell to the grass. She giggled. "If you're asking me what I think about the institution...I believe that marriage is taken much too lightly these days, but is still a productive and satisfying arrangement between the right parties." I waited with baited breath to see what she would say next.

"Do you think you'll ever get married?"

"Why are you asking me this, Hermione?" I couldn't help asking. I didn't know how to answer with out revealing my hand to her, and I couldn't stop the wild pounding of my heart. She shrugged as if the topic was only of mild interest to her, but I could see by the set of her shoulders it mattered to her.

"I just wondered." I waited, knowing there was more to come. "Its just...we've been together for over a year now, did you know that?" She glanced at me. I nodded.

"I am aware."

"And I'm sure you want to get on with your life, you know? You deserve to find someone that you can marry and maybe have a few babies with." I felt my heart breaking with each word she spoke. This was it. She was leaving me. She said it was me who wanted to get on with my life, but she really mean that she was ready to move on. To find someone to marry and have children with. I fought to keep my voice steady.

"I've never had much interest in babies. I suppose that would be up to my wife to decide if she wanted children." It was the only thing I could think of to say.

"You don't want kids?"

"I am ambivalent to the idea."

"Oh." She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, squinting out across the water. "Well, I just think that there isn't any more to teach me, right? I've moved past any fears or insecurities I had when we started this. And I've kept you captive for too long. You deserve to find someone you really want to be with."

"I have never been unhappy with our situation," I gritted out. She looked at me, surprised.

"But have you ever been truly happy?"

"What do you mean?"

"It just seems...I don't know, as if you're missing something. Like you're looking for something else. Something that I can't give you." She searched my face, unable to know just how close to the mark her words truly were. But she could give me what I was looking for. She was the only one I wanted it from. If only I could make her love me...

"You have never been less than I wanted," I answered honestly.

"Would you ever want to marry me?" Her whispered words hit me like a boot to the stomach. She studied her hands, the grass, anything but my eyes. I drew in a sharp breath, unable to believe what she'd just said. Could this possibly mean...? Wild hope sprang up in my chest, a twin vine to the one she'd planted within me so long ago the night she'd accepted my past and forgiven me for it. But I crushed it down. She'd never spoken of love. She'd never mentioned her own happiness. Only mine. There was no reason for me to believe that she loved me, or even if she would say those blessed words, for me to know that she truly meant them. She'd seen so little of the world, so little of men. My stomach clenched against the pain.

"No." My word was as final and emotionless as I felt. This discussion could only end one way. What hope could there be.

"Oh," she said softly. The look of pain on her face would have taken me to my knees if I'd been standing. It passed like ice through my veins, twisting my heart into knots. I couldn't leave it at that.

"Not because I don't want you," I said softly, placing my finger under her chin and tipping her face up to mine. "But because it would be unfair to tie someone like you to my side forever."

"How can you say that?!"

"Hermione, you are so young. You have seen so little of the world. I'm the only man you've ever been with. You couldn't honestly want to be bound to me forever. And I would never tie you to my side out of some misplaced sense of obligation on your part. Without love, marriage is only a contract."

"But..." Her voice caught as tears filled her eyes. "But I love you," she whispered. I stared, dumbstruck. How had those words just left her beautiful lips? How had I just heard them from her? How could they be true?

"No," I gasped. I shook my head. "No. That's not possible."

"What? Why?"

"You feel gratitude and respect, maybe even affection, but you can't love me."

"You can't stop me, Headmaster. I love you, no matter what you say about it." She glared at me. I shook my head again.

"Listen, Hermione, you don't know what you're saying." I fought desperately against accepting her words. Because as soon as I allowed them to take root in my heart, I would never let her go. I would bind her to me in every way recognized by man and god and keep her by my side for the rest of eternity. "You are confused. You've never been with anyone else, so you have no way of differentiating between friendly affection and romantic love." Her glare intensified. She sat up, put her hands on her hips and started to speak. Then she stopped, her glare wilting and her fire extinguishing.

"If you can't love me back, Severus, just say so. But don't try to tell me what I do and don't feel."

"Can't love you?" I flinched away from even the words. "Hermione don't you realize..." I fell silent, warring with myself if I should tell her how I felt. "Anyone would be stupid not to love you. Not to utterly adore you. Not to want to dedicate their life to making you smile."

"And you are far from stupid..." Her grin spread across her face and lit up the sky brighter than the noonday sun.

"It doesn't change anything. What I feel is inconsequential. Hermione you are too young and inexperienced to decide that you want to spend your life with someone."

"Oh, I am, am I? What else about me do you find lacking? My emotional maturity? My choice of career? Obviously my decisions and lack of sexual partners discount me from serious consideration from you." She pushed to her feet angrily. "Don't hide behind my age, Severus Snape. Don't even try. You can't hide from me. I see you. I've always seen you. If you want to reject me, then do it. But you and I both know that I'm the only one who can decide if I'm ready to love, ready to commit."

"I'm not rejecting you!" I said in exasperation.

"Then tell me you love me!"

"I love you!" I roared. "I love every blasted thing about you! I love every bushy hair on your godforsaken, perfect head! I love the way you move, the way to speak, I love every word that falls from your lips simply because they came from you! I love you!"

She stared at me for a moment, both of us watching the other, chests heaving. Then, in a split second, she launched herself at me. She flew into my arms, holding me close, pressing her chest tight to mine as if she could make our very hearts touch. A soft sob shook her.

"I love you too," she said brokenly. "I've been in love with for so long. I just want to stay with you. But I was so worried that you were only staying with me because you felt obligated to. Like you had to after all you'd done for me. And I couldn't bear to keep you at my side any longer if you didn't love me."

"How could I not love you, Hermione? You are everything I could have ever wished for in a partner. If the creator himself had fashioned a woman just for me, perfect in every way, she still couldn't hold a candle to you. You make my world complete. You are the light in my soul. The refuge for my heart. My everything."

"Then marry me. Make me yours forever. Never let me go."

I pulled back and stared into her eyes. I watched as every emotion I'd ever prayed for crossed her face. I saw the love written on her every feature, saw it shining in her eyes. Felt my soul bind itself inextricably to hers.

"I can't," I forced myself to say. "We can never be together, Miss Granger."

Or at least, that's what I would have said if I was a stark, raving lunatic. Because only an utter fool would look everything he'd ever wanted in the eye and turn it down. Selfish or not, right or not, proper or not, I could not let her go. I needed her more than the very air that I breathe.

I traced her lips with my fingertips, memorizing this moment. Burning it into my mind for all time.

"Yes," I said softly, that hope taking root so deeply within me it would never die. "Yes. Marry me. Be mine. Stay by my side forever." She laughed in joy and clung to me. We kissed, pouring every emotion we felt into the meeting of our lips. Knowing that from that point forward, life would never be the same again.

SSHG

And it hasn't been. We got married on a quiet day the next summer. The wedding took pace in front of the black lake, right where we'd first confessed our love to each other. I grudgingly accepted handshakes and congratulations from Potter and Weasely. Hermione looked stunning in her white gown and emerald jewelry.

We settled back into life much the way we had been living for the year before, except that every time I wanted to tell her I loved her, rather than fight it back and deny myself,I would pull her to me and confess every ounce of my adoration for her.

A few years later, the little chit decided that she wanted babies. Babies. With the dirty diapers and constant feeding and the crying.

But they're cute little blighters, and I can't help but love them.

My life has never been so complete. I have never felt this kind of peace. I never expected I would. Somewhere along the dark path of my early life, I lost hope that I could ever have the type of happiness I now enjoy every day. I think maybe Hermione did too. And separate, we might never have had a shot at bliss. Only together could we truly find paradise. Its an antiquated notion, but I honestly believe she is my soul mate. I accept the silly, romantic notion because there is no other explanation for it.

Mrs. Granger never woke up from her coma, and passed away a few years ago. I know Hermione grieved for the mother she never really got to know, but I was grateful that she never had to learn what happened to her daughter. Having become a parent myself, I cannot even begin to imagine what it would have been like for Mrs. Granger to awake and find out what her husband had been doing to her child. I have always seen it as a kind of blessing that she never had to learn. Of course, Hermione believes that some part of her mother was still there, inside the comatose body. If that was the case, I can only pray that she never understood what the sounds coming from her daughter's room meant. That she believed Hermione's tales about the life we shared together. And in a way, Mrs. Granger was the very first person to find out about Hermione and I. I suppose that's the way it should be. I can't thank the circumstances that drew us together, but I have to be grateful to whatever spirits guided us, because the place we have come to is my own little slice of heaven.

**Sigh** It came faster than I'd like, but I'm glad they got to this ending. What did you all think?