"Marry me."

Hermione turned to face Viktor and reached up to cradle his cheeks as she drew his face to hers and bestowed a sweet and tender kiss. Standing on tip-toe as she pulled away, she tucked back stray hairs from his fringe.

"I can't. Marriage means more to me than what anyone else thinks or says. Marriage means knowing that I'm not just happy for now, but knowing, whatever might come, I won't ever want anyone else. It means knowing if the Ministry decided to deport all foreign nationals tomorrow, that I would be willing to go with you."

---

Hermione worried at her lower lip as she tried to find the courage to meet Viktor's eyes.

A gentle finger under her chin tilted her head back, and Viktor gave a wistful sigh. "And that is what I thought you... would say, but I needed to ask, you understand? It is the honourable thing."

Hermione smiled weakly. "I understand. You wouldn't be you, if you didn't feel that way."

"And you... would not be my Herm-i-own-ee, if you had said yes."

Hermione looked into the dark eyes that she was already falling for. "I didn't say no. Just not yet."

---

"Severus," Hermione asked as she set down the tea tray, "can I ask you something?"

Severus raised a quizzical eyebrow. "I couldn't stop you when you were twelve years old. Why should I be able to stop you now?"

"This is different." She swallowed a mouthful of tea. "You know I've been staying at Viktor's?"

"I had my suspicions," Severus admitted, keeping his voice as bland as possible.

"Does it make you think any less of me?" she whispered.

"That would make me a bit of a hypocrite, wouldn't it? I advised you to give him a chance."

"Viktor proposed."

---

It was only years of training in masking his emotions that allowed Severus to swallow his tea the wrong way and have a minor coughing fit, rather than spraying it across the tabletop.

"He did what?" he finally gasped.

"He asked me to marry him," Hermione elucidated. "That's what proposed normally means. Moody put some flea in his ear about living in sin or something and told him he'd have half the Order down around his ears if he didn't do the gentlemanly thing."

"Ahhh! So you want to know if everyone is as hide-bound as Moody?"

"So? Are they?"

---

"You have to remember that change happens far slower in the wizarding world, Hermione," Severus began. "I'm a thirty-nine-year-old half-blood whose parents' marriage was the epitome of 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure'. I think it makes perfect sense for you to live with Krum for as long as you need to make up your mind.

However, many of those in positions of authority in the Ministry are pure-bloods over ninety. That makes them contemporaries of your great-great-grandparents, and even with younger pure-bloods, a woman who had openly lived with another man might well be regarded as damaged goods."

---

Hermione snorted her disbelief at this antiquated logic. "So it's alright for Pansy Parkinson to drop her knickers for Draco Malfoy in every dark corner of Hogwarts and then marry Marcus Flint, but because Viktor and I don't sneak around, I'm untouchable?"

"Parkinson overplayed her hand. Draco took what was on offer, but when it comes to marriage he wouldn't settle for less than the bloodline and the looks to match his own. As for Flint, beggars can't be choosers."

Snape's lips twitched upward slightly. "And, Hermione, any man who would let you get away is too stupid to deserve you."

---

'And how stupid does that make you?' both thought.

Hermione continued the conversation before she could linger too long on that question. "So, it would only really be an issue if I was going to marry into some ultra-conservative pure-blood family who wouldn't have me in the first place because I'm Muggle-born?"

"Certain employers might cause problems. I think the Ministry still puts morality clauses in their contracts. I haven't heard of them trying to enforce them, but technically... Even Hogwarts has wards that alert the headmistress if any teachers have members of the opposite sex in their private rooms."

---

"And you tell me this now?" Hermione demanded, her voice hitting the upper registers. "You couldn't mention it before I moved in with Viktor?"

"Well, pardon me for assuming that there might actually be some sort of courting period before the pair of you shacked up together!" Severus retaliated. "I told you to give him a chance. It's hardly my fault that you translated that to mean shag him blind his first day in the country."

"That's so not fair!" Hermione's voice faltered as she spoke, and she dropped her head so that her hair fell forward over her face.

---

Severus felt a literal pain in his chest as he realised that he had caused his beautiful girl to look so abject. He stepped forward and slid his hand under the mass of hair, brushing his thumb gently over her cheekbone as his other arm pulled her close.

"No," he admitted, "it wasn't, but then neither were your accusations. I never realised that I would need to warn you of these things so soon, or that Krum would fail to mention them if the situation arose.

Is it such a problem? You were never meant to be some Ministry drone."

---

Hermione allowed herself a few seconds to bury her face against his shoulder before she lifted tear-bright eyes to meet his. "I want to make a difference. There are two ways I can think of to do that once the war is over. One is to gain a position of power within the Ministry. The other is to help shape future generations... And now I've probably lost my chance to do either."

Severus gave her a rueful smile. "Take it from me, shaping future generations isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"You did more than you know," Hermione whispered.