April 2002

Hermione groaned and rolled over in bed, reluctant to leave its warm confines but the sunbeams streaming into her window told her it was past time to get up. A quick glance told her that her wife was, as usual, still fast asleep in bed beside her, her dark curls spread out in a chaotic halo around her head. Even after many years her heart still clenched a bit at how stunningly beautiful she was. Hermione let herself stare for just a minute, enjoying the moment of serenity before tearing her gaze away and focusing on her plans for the day.

Bellatrix had never been an early riser, which today was something Hermione was counting on. It was her wife's birthday and Hermione had a surprise gift that she had been working on for quite awhile. She snuck as silently as possible out of bed to retrieve it, slipping on her dressing gown to fight off the slight chill of the room. She had finished the surprise a few days ago and had hidden it behind a few rarely used books, protected by a strong notice-me-not charm.

Her hand firmly grasped on her prize, she paused, considering the small, nondescript vial filled with a practically luminescent red liquid. She had brewed it herself, checked and double checked the ingredients and procedure until she knew the recipe by heart. The potion wouldn't do anything by itself, but when combined with the full moon and a ritual she had found in a book about soulmates, it would become very powerful indeed.

A few months ago, when everything had finally settled down after the Ministry takeover and both she and Bella were secure in their careers, Hermione had begun her search for a way they could have children. They had talked about it briefly, after the events in the Astronomy Tower, and had come to the conclusion that yes, they wanted children, but not yet, and thus hadn't gone any further into investigating the subject. Hermione hadn't ever doubted their ability to have children, them being soulmates almost guaranteed it, it was simply a matter of finding the best way to go about it. When she found the ritual and read the detailed description she turned a dark red from her chest to the tips of her ears, which was quite a feat as she was long past being a blushing virgin, but she knew it was perfect. She was quite glad no one had been in the room while she was reading, and kept the book tucked away while she gathered the required materials and ingredients.

It wasn't a full moon tonight and wouldn't be for another week, so they couldn't do the ritual right away, but she thought it would make a nice birthday surprise anyways. Bella hadn't said anything, hadn't pushed, but Hermione just knew that Bella was ready and had been for quite some time. She knew that her wife would be overjoyed by Hermione's initiative.

She padded softly back to the bed, potion firmly in hand, and climbed to gently straddle her wife, gently letting her weight rest on Bella's hips as she leaned down to kiss her gently on the lips. She knew the moment Bella awoke, as her kiss was returned and arms moved from where they had rested on the sheets to pull her closer.

"Mmm… good morning love."

Bella murmured her greeting without fully deattaching from Hermione's lips, her eyes still fully closed. Hermione pulled back, smiling as Bella instinctively tried to follow before flopping back on the pillow.

"Happy Birthday Bella. I have a surprise for you."

Bella's eyes finally opened at that, the sleepy gaze sharpening at record speed as the swirling liquid of the potion caught her gaze.

"It's..." Hermione had planned on explaining the potion and the ritual, but Bella's finger placed on her lips and her dark gaze stopped her in her tracks.

"Oh I know exactly what it is, darling."

Bella's voice was an octave lower than it had been, thick with arousal and emotion.

"You never said anything…?" Hermione was a bit surprised that Bella had never revealed her knowledge about the ritual, never even hinted at the possibility or its existence.

"I've known about it since long before I met you, it's something I found shortly after the initial prophecy. I knew you'd find it when the time was right, when you were ready. Are you sure?"

As soon as Hermione nodded, Bella sat up and in one smooth movement the potion was set safely on the beside table and Hermione found herself underneath her wife, being all but devoured by her lips and tongue. The arousal that had been building since she awoke burst into an inferno and she surrendered to it gladly.

"Bella, wait. It's not a full moon so we can't..."

Bella's smirk was positively gleeful.

"Yes, you're right. But the ritual is quite specific and I think we ought to practice it a few times before the real thing, don't you?"

October 2016

Hogwarts' Headmaster Severus Snape took a deep, controlled breath, staring down at the heavy wood grain of the desk in his office and focusing on tracing the minute lines in its surface. His hands clenched into fists with his irritation, the skin stretched and white across strained tendons as he resisted the strong urge to wring the puny little necks of the perpetrators standing in front of him. That, however, would be an incredibly dimwitted idea, and Severus prided himself on being the opposite. Not that it wouldn't be extremely satisfying – it would be, certainly, just not worth the untimely and extraordinarily painful death that would be bestowed upon him by the parents of the delinquents in question, were he to harm a single unruly hair on their heads.

He cleared his throat and looked up, having delayed enough to create a delicious sort of suspense, evident in the way the two girls standing before him were fidgeting with wide, nervous eyes. He might not be able to do anything to them, but it certainly couldn't hurt to scare some sense into the twins. Mind you, it wasn't the first time they stood before him in this very office during their three years at Hogwarts and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but if he succeeded he might put off the next incident for a month or two.

"You will receive exactly one more chance to sufficiently explain what you both were doing in the girl's lavatory on the second floor, which is strictly forbidden and, might I add, locked, and exactly how you managed to cause an explosion that not only destroyed the bathroom, but also most of the corridor as well?"

Alya and Alasia Black weren't completely identical, if you knew them well enough, but they were close enough that when they stood still with neutral expressions it was hard for even Severus to tell them apart. In motion though, they couldn't be more different, and their body language betrayed their identity more often than not when they tried to pull off a switch.

"Well, you see…" Alya began to speak, her voice wavering, but was cut off by a sharp elbow jab in the ribs from her sister, who was looking at her with an urgent, warning expression. An almost unnoticeable head shake later and Alya was silent, pressing her lips tightly together almost as if to remind herself not to speak.

"Very well." Severus let his voice drawl over the last syllable, shifting his eyes back and forth from one girl to the other. "I'll just have to come to conclusions on my own. From the melted remnants of what used to be a cauldron, I'd say you were brewing a potion. And from what I could decipher from the sludge that coated the remaining walls, it contained lacewing flies."

Severus hadn't at all been sure of the ingredients of the brew, but from the brief flash of panic in Alasia's eyes before she regained her calm expression, he was on to something.

"A rather rare ingredient, lacewing flies, not many a brew require it. I must ask, what reason could you possibly have to be brewing polyjuice potion?"

Alya scoffed, "If we wanted to brew polyjoice potion we wouldn't have blown anything up, I mastered that years ago."

"Alya!" Alasia glared at her sister, who grimaced and sheepishly slapped a hand over her mouth. Alasia sighed, clearly the meeting not going as she had imagined, and shook her head at her sister. "We might as well tell him, now. No plausible deniability anymore and you know Mum will figure it out anyways."

Severus raised an eyebrow, wondering to himself which mother they were referring to.

"Please, enlighten me."

It was Alya that spoke, and despite her more shy and reserved manner Snape suspected it was she who was often the instigator of these sort of things.

"Well, you know Gliese is a metamorphagus, right?"

Severus nodded at Alya's question, he was well aware that their younger sibling was gifted, and was in fact dreading the next year when she too would come to Hogwarts and add to the growing list of reasons why he really should retire.

"Well, its sort of just really unfair that she can change her face and look like whoever she wants, and we can't. So we decided to make a potion that can make us metamorphagi as well. There isn't one, yet, but I thought if we modified polyjuice a bit, we could invent one."

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the beginnings of a migraine coming on. Not only were they brewing something illegal and dangerous, they were attempting to invent a new illegal and dangerous potion. He was suddenly very glad for the explosion – at least it had been destroyed before the twins managed to do something as stupid as testing the potion.

"I'd lecture you both on the dangers of potion experimentation, if I didn't know that you're both much too stubborn for it to penetrate your thick skulls. As it is, 50 points from Slytherin – each, and detention with your Head of House for a month."

Alasia opened her mouth to complain but thought better of it and instead remained silent, knowing Severus well enough to guess that he wasn't finished.

"You may as well sit down and get comfortable - I'll be calling your mother."

He read the question before it could even be asked, and smirked.

"Both of them."