Severus regarded her, trying to figure out … what was wrong. He couldn't. That didn't mean he wasn't aware that there was something wrong.

She was acting oddly, even her familiar seemed to notice it. He was, unlike Severus, steering clear of her. Perhaps he should take his cue from the feline. He'd thought, maybe, it was that time for her. She didn't seem to be too badly affected by it, only using a potion he made available to her once in a while. He'd seen all sorts of … various symptoms that came with a woman's menses many times as his position of head of house. He knew some would accuse him of being unkind or stereotypical for assuming that was the issue, but he knew about the time she got her monthly. So, it wasn't as if he presumed any bad mood was a result of that.

"What?" she asked, lifting her eyes to meet his without moving her head. So, she didn't really want to look at him. She knew he was watching her, though. He wasn't used to the gesture when she wasn't studying.

"I am trying to figure that out myself. Did you get a bad grade on a final exam or something?" She had finished her second year and, unexpectedly, achieved perfect grades this year the same as last.

"No," she said.

"Hermione. I am not a mind reader. Nor am I overly experienced in personal relationships. If there is something on your mind, please speak freely. If you'd prefer I guess, we could be here all night."

She murmured something.

"I'm sorry?"

She murmured something again, but this time he picked up on one word.

Pregnant.

Merlin. He was pretty sure his heart stopped beating with that word.

"You are pregnant?" he asked.

"I don't know," she murmured.

"You don't know?" How could she not know? If she suspected she was, certainly she'd cast the diagnostics by now. That meant she was pregnant, didn't it?

"No. I, um, am late."

Words he'd heard before, of course, assisting Poppy in the infirmary and as head of Slytherin. However, they were not words he assumed would ever be directed at, or about, him and his involvement in a witch being late.

"And you haven't said anything because…"

"I don't know. We haven't talked about whether you even want children."

"Why would you think I don't?"

"Because you're forty years old and don't have any."

"As I have had no relationships before now, and no sexual experiences, that would be impossible."

She rolled her eyes. Okay, perhaps his response was a little glib. He couldn't help it! Had he gone out of his way to think about children when the possibility of having them didn't exist? No.

"Don't do that, Hermione. Clearly, it hasn't been my goal in life to father a random child. I haven't mentioned it because you are still in school. We've both mentioned the possibility of children. Neither of us has reacted violently, so I presumed we were both on the same page of the appropriate time and place. Have you run diagnostics?"

"I don't know how." This was whispered, so he almost didn't catch it.

"I'm sorry?"

"I have never had reason to know them until you," she said, sounding defensive. "As I wasn't planning on becoming a healer, and witches didn't get pregnant at Madam Docherty's school. Well, it wasn't something I needed to learn."

He breathed a little easier here. So she hadn't run diagnostics. She genuinely did not know whether she was pregnant.

"Okay. I wasn't judging. You spoke so softly I wanted to ensure I heard correctly. That is all. I can run it, and teach you. I assumed you paid attention the other time I ran them on you."

"I'm not sure I want to know."

Not entirely unreasonable. Hell, he wasn't sure he wanted to know either. 

"You need to know."

She sighed.

"Hermione?"

Silence, and he truly had no idea what was going on in that brain beneath those curls of hers.

"If I am?"

"I'm not sure I understand the question."

"What if I am?"

"Then we will get married."

She huffed.

"That's why I'm not sure I want to know."

He frowned. And was, admittedly, more than a little hurt at the implication behind those words. "You don't want to get married?"

"Not because I'm pregnant."

"Hermione."

"You're talking a year from now, us leaving."

"Yes."

"What would we do if we had a small child, Severus?"

"We would…"

"Make due. Alone. In the past, when my role would be the stay at home mum and yours would be the provider."

"Well, nothing says you have to stay home."

"And who would we leave a child with? They'd have no grandparents. No relatives. Nobody."

"Okay, now you're just reading…"

"But I'm not. I understand your reason for wanting to leave, but my life is here. I chose to move here, hoping to carve out a life here. Except you, it would seem. I started sleeping here, and it was just a given that I live here now. I'm fine with that, but I'm not going to enter into something more permanent because of anything but true want to be there."

"You think I don't wish to marry you?"

"I think that you want to hide, and you want to take me with you. I think you think I'm yours. I don't blame you, and I get it. I do, which is the reason I haven't argued with you. I understand that you've never had anything you considered yours until now. I'm … flattered that I am that. Yours, I mean. But that can't be all that I am. Maybe I'm not pregnant, but it's made me think about if we have children. Is that the lesson we should be teaching them?"

"You think I'm running away, and that is the example I'll be setting for them," he said. He gave a slight nod. She'd hit the nail on the head talking about wanting to take her with him. He didn't think of her as a possession, an item he could control. Not at all. He did want her with him, though. "That we'll be teaching them that running away is the proper course of action. I could have left after 1981, you know. I didn't have to stay at Hogwarts. I stayed, though. There are people who wish me dead, Hermione."

"Are you one of the most powerful wizards in the world, or aren't you, Severus? I'm so proud that for whatever reason I was chosen to be your soul mate, but I'm not sure you see yourself the way I do."

"And how does any of this affect your potential condition?"

She huffed. She stood, bringing her plate to the counter and then returned to him. He shifted on his chair and she moved to straddle him, her arms going around his neck. Evidence she wasn't mad at him? He hoped so.

"I want to be here, Severus. With you. I want to move forward and be with you as I do that. I absolutely love the idea of being Unspeakables and working to right various things in the past. I think it's a great idea, but I want our life. Our present. To be here. It's been two years. You and Harry have gotten to the point that finding any errant followers is getting more difficult. Either they're not out there, or they're hiding very well. I believe you when you say that there are still some free. I don't want you to hide, Severus. I want you to live. Show them how brave you are."

He scoffed.

"I was a fool."

"At first," she said, running her fingers through the ends of his hair. "You kept spying, though. You saved Harry. You helped the headmaster realize that Harry's godfather would never have betrayed James."

Severus rolled his eyes.

"Don't do that. I know you didn't like him, but that's what makes it even more admirable in my eyes. I have one more year. We need to make decisions. I mean, I don't want you to be an Unspeakable and do all of these things without me."

He chuckled. "We wouldn't want that."

"I just think of all the good things you have done, all the progress you've made here. I just think it would feel … fake. And Harry wants you here, Severus. Not because you helped save his life. Not because you were friends with his mum. He wants you here because he genuinely cares and wants to see your future play out. He believes you earned it."

He inhaled sharply. "You like this town?"

"I do. I like this house, and it is nice being secret-kept. The town is nice."

"Agreed."

He set a hand at her abdomen.

"May I?"

"Yes," she said.

"Are you hoping for a false alarm?"

"I'm not hoping for anything, Severus."

"So, it's not that you don't wish to have a child with me?"

"That's not it at all."

He pushed her shirt up a bit, murmuring the spell that would reveal if she was with child or not. With child. Merlin, in the nearly two years they'd been sleeping together, the idea had never truly occurred to him. Returning from Lithuania had been more of a reassurance that they had indeed remembered to cast the charm every time that week before he left.

Stupid, perhaps.

"Nothing," he murmured.

She expelled a breath.

"You were really worried?"

"I don't think I've ever been this late."

"How late?" he asked.

"Um, five days."

He summoned his wand, taking hold of it when it came to him. He cast the spell again.

"Nothing," he said. He didn't think the wand would make any difference, but just in case. "Could you have miscounted?"

"Maybe," she said.

"Well, let's keep an eye on it. If we have to pay Poppy a visit, we will."

"Poppy?"

"The healer at Hogwarts. I would prefer to avoid St. Mungo's."

"Oh, right. I just didn't know her name."

He let her shirt fall back into place, sliding his hand to her cheek. What in the world did he say now? I'm sorry seemed inappropriate since they hadn't been trying.

"You are all right?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, Severus."

He had to take her at her word. He hadn't spent the last five or six days believing she could be pregnant.

"Let me discuss with Kingsley. Actually, scratch that, let us discuss with Kingsley the next time he visits."

"Okay."

"When I first thought of the idea, we had really only just met."

"I know."

"The war was still very fresh."

"I know that, too."

"I do hate the idea of people who know - knew - me seeing you with me."

She shook her head, running the pad of her thumb over the largest scar on his face. She knew exactly what he was referring to. He didn't want her to be made fun of for being with him. Granted, she could experience that no matter the time they lived.

"This. These. They make absolutely no difference to me. I know you know that."

She was right, he did. She didn't care. He still saw the looks they got when they were out together. So, it was hard for him not to care. He liked the idea of her being ridiculed and laughed at even less than him being the subject of it. Especially as he would be the reason behind it. He didn't ever want to be responsible for cruelty directed at her.

"I do. It doesn't mean I want people wondering why you're with me."

"They'd wonder that anywhere, Severus. We're nearly twenty years apart. Even without the scars they'd wonder. At least here we can blame it on the war, and they'll know."

"There is truth in that. It's instinct for me to want to … hide."

"I know. I don't want you to hide. I want you to do great things. Here. Now. With me. For the wizarding world that you worked hard to invoke change in. You fought for this world, Severus. I want you to see what you did every day."

"Honestly, my thought was more of you, not having to live in the shadow of Lily Potter and my past."

"Your past doesn't bother me. When we have a child one day, I'd like them to go to Hogwarts, proud of who their father is, not lying about who you are."

"You do realize I wasn't always a spy, Hermione? There are people, not just former followers, who will have negative things to say about me? Harry's godfather and Lupin are not the only two who have known me for many years. People could tell you stories to try to change your mind about me."

"I'm aware, Severus." She nuzzled her cheek against his jaw. "You have a soul for me to be a soul mate with, Severus. That trumps anything you might have done twenty years ago. You can cast a patronus. Those things point to you having made mistakes, but not ones you couldn't come back from. Couldn't redeem yourself from having made. You have."

Valid points. All things he'd thought of the past couple of years when arguing with himself about the wisdom of continuing down this path. A future with her.

"I wouldn't marry you because of a child. It might move the goal of doing so up a bit, nothing more." He took hold of her left hand, kissing the tip of it before turning it palm up so that he could kiss the band of the ring he had gifted her last Christmas. It wasn't an engagement ring. It didn't need to be a formal engagement ring, as far as he was concerned. She knew what his gifting her this particular piece of jewelry meant. She wore it on her left hand, too. It was a fire opal and had appealed to him over all of the other options available to him. The jeweler he purchased it from said it was a sign, because the ring had been made for someone else who never picked it up.

"You mean you don't plan on us living in sin for the rest of our lives."

She was teasing him, something Harry found immensely amusing that she could - and did - get away with. Truthfully, it bothered him. Not her teasing him. Her living with him. She'd given up her apartment this past December, so she was officially living with him with no other address to her name. It was ingrained in him that gentlemen did not cohabitate with someone of marriage material. And yet, marrying before she was finished with her schooling seemed foolish.

So, while teasing him, it was a sore spot for him. Deep down, where his manners and the etiquette drummed into him by Minerva and others lived, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was not being fair to this witch by having the relationship with her they were having.

"Hardly. If you want me to be a part of the magical world here. We cannot. Not and have those hypothetical offspring respected."

Children. Merlin. He'd never in a million years dreamed he'd have children, or even the potential for them. Yes, they'd both dropped the words child and children, but there'd been no actual discussion of how many or when they'd want them. She'd want them, he supposed, since she was the one who would go through the process of having them. He was rather glad today's scare had been just that. A scare. It was something to … think about though, because he imagined the next scare could not be just a scare.

She snorted softly, kissing along the portion of the scar nearest his eye.

"You don't think I have insecurities, Severus."

"About what?"

"You are a hero. A war hero. Whatever your reasons for changing sides and turning spy, don't matter. You did. Witches would likely throw themselves at you."

"Delusional Witch! That has never happened."

"Sure, because they didn't know you were a hero until now, when you're presumed dead. You don't think that makes me feel pressure? As if I'm not going to be scrutinized?"

"One merely has to look at your school records to know you are a capable, intelligent witch. Your university records as well point to that end. Those things I would not find in anyone else."

"You don't know that."

"You don't think hundreds, closer to a thousand witches haven't crossed my path between the time I was a student and a professor. Trust me, Hermione, I know. Madam Docherty knows how lucky she was that your parents didn't want to send you to Hogwarts, I'm sure of it. And I'm quite certain, had you gone to Hogwarts, you would have been sorted into Gryffindor with Harry because you're brave and courageous. I've seen the way you handle your customers at the pub, so you are both chivalrous and have nerve, too. Likely, too, you would have been one of Minerva's favorite students. Because, she would also recognize a once in a generation intellect crossing her path."

She'd moved her mouth from his scar near his eye to his cheek and finally his ear. She wasn't just casually kissing him anymore either. In fact, her hand was not so subtly undoing his belt and the fastenings on his trousers.

"See," he quipped as he shifted his hips a bit for her. "Bravery, taking the initiative like this after I just cast a pregnancy diagnostic on you."

She laughed softly, finding his neck and nipping him there. She never shied away from the scars there either. The one on his face was more noticeable, generally speaking, but the one on his neck courtesy of Nagini was by far more pronounced.

The chair he was sitting in was likely not the best for this, but his witch made it work (and bless her she was wearing a skirt today). Fuck, he loved her like this. Needing him. Wanting him. Loving him. Desiring him.

Things he still couldn't believe he was deserving of, soul mate pointing to the fact he did or not. Her hands were at his neck, fingers at the nape of his neck twining through his hair as she rode him, not at all shy about taking what she evidently needed from him at the moment.

Relief she wasn't pregnant?

Relief he wasn't upset that she might have been?

It really didn't matter. He tilted his head back a little as she worked at marking the good side of his neck. She finished almost as suddenly as she'd started this tryst, hard and fast. She stilled against him with little but her increased breathing telling him that had actually happened.

Well, the fact he was partially pantsed was proof, too.

"May I?" he asked.

"Yes," she said with a soft laugh.

He set his hands at her hips then, working to achieve his own release. It didn't take long. Her urgency was arousing as hell. Other than casting a cleansing charm a few minutes after he finished, she didn't move.

"You really wouldn't have been mad," she whispered against his neck.

"No. Surprised, as I am the one casting the charm and making your potion, but no."

She exhaled sharply against the spot her mouth was resting against.

"I'd prefer you be through with your schooling, and that we have a plan for our future in play. I would also prefer being married before one is conceived, but with as active as we are, I realize that may not be a realistic thought."

She snorted. "What happened to your potion not failing."

"Well, it shouldn't."

"I'm sorry I've been crabby."

"You have been less intolerable than I've heard some men complain about, so no apologies are necessary. Next time, talk to me, and we will run the diagnostic immediately so that you don't fret over it for days"

"I wasn't sure if you'd be mad, like, think I did it deliberately or something."

"No. Now that first night…"

She laughed softly. "We both cast the charm that night."

"We did. I actually pride myself for allowing my brain to function well enough to think to do that."

"I kind of like you brainless."

He snorted as she brushed her cheek against his neck. He was still worried she'd be bothered by the facial hair, but she never seemed to.

"Can we just sit here all night?"

"I think both of our arses would fall asleep, but if you want to fall asleep astride me that could be arranged."

"Mm," she whispered.

"How about a bath?"

She perked up at that and he chuckled as she drew away. His eyes fell closed as she maneuvered off his lap. How she could do it without falling on her arse he wasn't sure, but she managed.

She offered him her hand as soon as he adjusted his trousers. He hadn't realized the … potential for the rather large tub their bedroom's bathroom offered. He fully appreciated it now, and they had a selection of oils he'd made to add to the water.

"Wine?" he asked before taking her hand.

She tilted her head a bit, as if thinking hard on such a simple question. "Actually, yes, that sounds good."

"I will grab a bottle of the one you like and meet you upstairs."

"I'll draw the bath water then."

"Excellent."

He watched as she padded out of the kitchen, shaking his head slightly. Merlin, the idea of her being pregnant truly hadn't once entered his mind in the entire time they'd been intimate. That was an almost embarrassing realization. He wasn't sure if that made him a fool or not. Thank goodness he was an exceptional potion master!

"And, Hermione," he said when she was almost to the stairs. She spun on the pads of her bare feet to face him. "I'm sorry if the diagnostics being negative upset you."

She gave a small smile. "I'm not upset, Severus. I'm not even disappointed, but I am something. You spend five days thinking something," she said with a shrug.

"I understand. I am ashamed I didn't ask about your differing mood until today. As long as you are okay?"

"I am."

He nodded then. Her eyes were a little misty he noticed before she turned around to head upstairs. So he imagined maybe she had spent five days thinking about something while he hadn't a clue. Fuck, he really wasn't very good at this if it took him days to think to ask her what was wrong. And yet, maybe she hadn't been ready to tell him days ago. She was likely scared and, obviously, uncertain as to his potential reaction.

He shook his head as he headed toward the wine cellar the house offered off the kitchen. He was glad she liked wine. He had some beer in here as well as some cigars. He didn't smoke them often, but he did enjoy one now and again. An indulgence she didn't seem to begrudge him.

Actually, she didn't seem to begrudge him much of anything. Solitude if he needed it? She found something to do and left him to his own devices. It was not at all what he expected cohabitation to be like. Of course, this home wasn't Spinner's End, and he'd learned from his parents what not to do.

The bottle of wine picked out, he found two glasses in the cupboard before heading upstairs to join her.

Story ©Susan Falk/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com