"Oh!" Hermione couldn't find anything else to say. Half-remembered facts swirled through her head. Articles about how there was a genetic component to alcoholism and statistics that showed children from abusive homes often became abusers in their turn... and as the silence stretched out she was sure that he could read her every awful thought in her face.

"Yes, oh!" Severus echoed sarcastically, consoling himself that even if Hermione didn't think of him as some geriatric dinosaur, this little bombshell would have driven her away regardless.

"You never really hurt anyone at Hogwarts."

"I never had to live with them."

---

Hermione aimed a half-strength slap for Severus's shoulder. "You're impossible," she sighed in frustration.

The corner of his mouth twitched and an eyebrow lifted slightly. "I believe that was the point I was making."

"Well, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm the one who just hit you, not the other way around," Hermione pointed out.

"Then heaven forbid the two of us should ever mate," Severus announced. "The coiffure of nightmares... Can hair be bushy and greasy at the same time? Demonic dentition, this nose, and two abusive parents?"

"And the smartest kids of their generation."

"I'd settle for happy."

---

Hermione felt a gentle smile claim her mouth as she pictured the nightmare breed, this time with the best of each of their characteristics, only for it to turn into a smirk. "I don't believe you," she said. "You have no tolerance for dunderheads."

"And therefore I would make their life miserable... So they would need to be sufficiently intelligent to not earn my scorn in order to be happy. However, my years as a teacher have taught me that extraordinary intelligence more often marks a child for misery and solitude than happiness. I wouldn't wish that on my progeny."

---

"For someone in your position," Hermione began, hedging around the issue of his sexuality, "you've obviously thought about this a lot."

Severus turned his attention back to the disc, turning it in his hands again. "It's hard not to. For some years, I was teaching the children of my peers, knowing that had I made some different choices, some of those children might have been mine."

Hermione frowned, trying to imagine him in a marriage of convenience, unable to conceive of any way that it might not meet his worst expectations. "It's a pity we can't choose who we love."

---

'A pity indeed,' thought Severus, knowing that he would never have chosen a precocious teenager and former pupil... though, unless he relocated abroad, the former pupil issue was one he'd have to concede or be forced to choose between even greater extremes of cradle-robbing and his hopes for a family.

She'd need to have a kind heart, to put up with him and to provide balance for any children. She'd have to be someone who would stand her ground and not let him intimidate her... and he did have little tolerance for dunderheads.

He might have chosen Hermione, after all.

---

"Come on." Hermione took his hand and pulled until he raised himself from the bed. When she reached the kitchen she nodded towards the stool he had sat on earlier. "Scrambled egg on toast?" she suggested.

Severus made a face.

"I just want to know you've at least eaten something before I go," she soothed. "I've been here two hours now. I can't really stretch much past a twenty seven hour day without it showing. I know it doesn't compare with your cooking, but I didn't think you'd want anything rich."

The grimace remained but he gave a silent nod.

---

"I'll get Arthur to take out a subscription to The Prophet again," Hermione said as she dropped bread into the toaster. "That way we can keep a watch on the engagements and weddings."

"It's probably a little late for that—"

"Tell that to Percy. Two weeks to go."

Severus snorted. "My invitation must have got lost in the post... but you're right. The birth announcements should make interesting reading as time goes on."

"At the least it might help us narrow down the possibilities."

"That is true," Severus admitted, "though I suspect another list might be rather more accurate."

---

"You can't go," Hermione insisted.

"I know where I am going. I know the wards that will be in place to protect it and I know how to counteract them."

"How do you know that they haven't put wards in place specifically to repel you?" Hermione asked, her voice becoming sharper with every round of arguing.

"I may be hung-over, but I am not going to give in just because your voice reaches a pitch that feels like someone is drilling inside my head... And even if I did, I would do exactly what I want when the time comes."

---

"It's insane," Hermione insisted one last time as she put on her coat and picked up her bag. "Please, just... don't."

"If we come up with a better plan before Halloween, then I will reconsider," Severus conceded, "but I don't think we will."

Hermione gave a little shiver. She'd never really been all that keen on the idea of celebrating Halloween after she realised it was the anniversary of Harry's parents' deaths.

"I'm sure I could probably talk her into showing me."

"Without arousing suspicion?"

They made their way to the door, and Hermione hugged him even tighter than usual.

---

"Hermione!" A chorus of voices greeted her when she entered headquarters.

Crookshanks wound himself back and forward between her feet and gave her sufficient excuse to ignore Ron, Harry and Remus until he'd been fed, but the boys followed her anyway.

"Hermione, we're sorry. And we were worried about you. You didn't come back."

"You're not my keeper, Ron."

"I used to be."

Hermione glared.

"'Cause you were in Gryffindor and I was their Keeper, see?"

Harry placed a hand on Ron's shoulder, stepping past him. "We apologised to Viktor. We waited outside the grounds."

Hermione gave a nod. "Good."