Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or the world they live in.

Author's Notes: This story is compliant with the DH epilogue but ignores any information provided by JK Rowling about the trio in interviews, etc. It can be viewed as AU because Snape lives, but interviews aside, I think there is room in the books for Snape to live.

As the Hogwarts Express trundled out of sight, four friends looked at each other and let out a long sigh.

"That doesn't get any easier," Harry said, reaching down and picking up his youngest child. Lily was still pouting about having to stay home while her brothers went to school and she buried her face in his chest in frustration.

"I doubt it ever will," Ron replied, glancing back in the direction of the now vanished train wistfully and taking Hugo's hand.

"Still, we're lucky, "Hermione offered with a smile. "Imagine how much worse it must have been for our parents, not knowing what horrors were around the corner." Behind her smile lay her own maternal despair at saying goodbye to her eldest child - how did she get so old, so quickly? - but she was determined to hide her sadness until she was alone. She glanced at Hugo and his frustrated frown almost broke her heart. He was fiercely attached to Rose and she wondered how he would cope without her.

"Our lot have managed to get themselves into some rather impressive scrapes despite the relative "safety" of the times,'" Ginny added with a grin. "Just like their parents, really."

Hermione had to agree. Rose and Hugo were just like her and Ron, equal parts temper and insatiable curiosity. They had been exhausting toddlers, and now that Rose was off to school she knew her life would be both calmer and lonelier. The four friends began to move back towards the bustling center of the railway station. Hermione caught another glimpse of Draco Malfoy and his wife, and gave them a quick but friendly smile, careful that Ron didn't notice. Malfoy responded with a wink that was far friendlier than the quick nod he had given Harry. Old enmities die hard, she mused. She was secretly rather proud of herself for overcoming her childhood hatred for Malfoy and developing a rather productive working relationship with him at the Ministry.

"Off to work?" Ginny asked, and Ron and Harry nodded. Hermione shook her head with a smile.

"I took the day off. I'm heading into London to meet my mum for lunch, although it looks like I'm going to be more than a little early. It's her birthday." Hermione noticed Ron's rather poorly hidden look of surprise at that detail. He had never quite gotten his head around remembering birthdays, especially ones that didn't involve presents for him.

"Do you have time for a quick coffee with me?" Ginny asked and Hermione was more than happy to comply. As they reached the apparition point outside the station, Hermione took the keys to the car from Ron and kissed him on the cheek while Harry and Ginny embraced.

"See you soon?" she asked.

"Promise," Ron replied, pulling her in for a hug. "Gwendolyn is at her mother's next weekend for a family thing... Want to get dinner on Saturday? I'd like to talk about Rose's birthday. We could go to the Leaky Cauldron. Gwen hates it there and I've been craving it for weeks."

"It's a date." Hermione took Hugo's outstretched hand and led him to the car.

Ginny let Lily give her dad one more hug and then put her in the back of Hermione's car next to Hugo. Getting into the passenger seat she glanced warily at the gear box.

"Are you sure this is the best way to get into the city?"

"Gin, Ron may be completely nuts when it comes to a lot of things, but he is right about the usefulness of a car." Hermione told her. "Where were you thinking for coffee?"

"The little place not far from Harrods? The one we took Rose to after she had that thing done with her teeth?"

"Her braces, yes. Perfect."

Hermione considered herself very lucky. She had two beautiful, if rambunctious, children and a very successful career. She had achieved her initial professional goals - the passage of a Protection of Werewolves Act and the unionizing of the House Elves - by the end of her second year at the Ministry and had moved on to criminal defense. Her ultimate goal was to reform and then serve on the Wizengamot and she knew that if she continued to have the kind of success she had achieved so far she wouldn't be far off a judicial nomination. She had a wonderful relationship with her ex-husband, and her children had adjusted magnificently to the back-and-forth of joint custody. Her two best friends were married and unbelievably happy, as always, and the wizarding world had lived in relative peace for nineteen years. Still, Ginny's question stung with a rather unexpected potency.

"You're young - don't look at me like that, you're not forty yet - and you don't look a day over thirty. You're successful, your kids are in school... Why not start dating again?"

Hermione had to admit it was a good question. She and Ron had been divorced for four years now, separated for six. In that time she had barely pursued other men, even as Ron had wooed, dated and married Gwendolyn.

"I don't know Gin, I'm busy with work, and the kids..."

"You're thirty-eight, Hermione. You're beautiful. You're smart. You can make time, but you choose not to. Why is that?"

"You know, you're a very strange former sister-in-law, you know that?"

"There's nothing former about it. When you and Ron divorced George and I decided to keep you and ditch Ron."

Hermione laughed. She was blessed that the Weasley's - Ron included - had forgiven her asking for a divorce. George had told her they had all been expecting it for years. Even Ron hadn't looked surprised. Sometimes she wondered if she had been the last to realize she wasn't happy, couldn't be happy, in the marriage.

"I guess I'm just... scared," Hermione admitted, staring at her cappuccino. "I've only ever loved one person and that didn't work out quite as I'd dreamed." She had imagined her and Ron growing old together, watching their children marry and have children of their own. It had never occurred to her that their differences would grow rather than diminish over the years.

"Well, I could have told you when you were twelve that you and Ron wouldn't last. But that doesn't mean you're doomed to a life of chastity, Hermione. Come on, when did you last shag someone?"

"Ginny!" Hermione was scandalized. Even having kids hadn't allowed Hermione to overcome her natural prudishness. Ginny's blasé attitude toward talking about sex - in public places! - was something she would never get used to. And besides, Lily and Hugo were sitting right next to them! Although they didn't seem to be paying too much attention to the conversation, preferring instead to stare at their gingerbread cookies as if it might suddenly come alive.

"I'm just saying Hermione, Ron's not sleeping alone."

"He's married."

"He wasn't when he first started having se..."

"Stop. I don't want to know. I don't. I like Gwendolyn but that's only because I don't ever think about... that."

"You're going to have to give love another shot one day," Ginny warned. "Or you'll end up like that Arabella Figg Harry used to live next too. Loads of cats. No shagging."

Hermione laughed off her friend's warning and ordered another coffee before changing the subject to Ginny's work as a public relations manager for Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. It was always easier to steer the conversation to calmer waters rather than to think too much about her rapidly approaching status as a divorcé-for-life.

That night as she sat up in bed editing her latest policy proposal and sipping camomile tea, Hermione thought about Ginny's advice. She was lonely. Not having Rose around was already hard, and she had only been accustomed to having her four nights a week. Hugo was with his dad for the night. Her townhouse seemed eerily quiet. She shook her head. She was being ridiculous. She was just depressed - as any mother would be - after sending her daughter off to school. And she was a little jealous too, if she admitted it. Despite the troubles of her latter years at the school, she still looked back fondly on her time at Hogwarts. It had been so easy then, in a lot of ways. Harry and Ron had been at her side every day for seven years. Now she felt as Ginny must have then... excluded. It wasn't their fault. Ginny and Harry were married, and Ron was Ginny's brother. Of course she felt cut off; she was not quite Ginny's sister-in-law, no longer Ron's wife.

She sighed and placed her papers on her nightstand before switching off her bedside lamp. Despite what she had told Ginny, she had tried to date since her split with Ron. In the first months after their divorce, spurred on by Ron's growing relationship with Gwendolyn, she had agreed to go on several dates with co-workers and friends-of-friends. Some of the men had even been quite charming. But nothing had ever felt right. Nothing had ever overcome the same problem she had felt with Ron. The feeling that there was something missing, that she was compensating for something with every smile, every gasp. She could never put her finger on it - it wasn't just a matter or intelligence, or looks, or humor. It was something of all three and by the end of two years of unsuccessful dating, Hermione had come to the conclusion that maybe she just wasn't supposed to find love.

As she lay in the dark, Hermione wondered how one conversation with Ginny could keep her awake at night after she had resolved herself against these feelings. There was no man for her out there. Yet, as she pulled the covers around her, Hermione couldn't help but wish that there was. That somewhere out there there could be a man she could love with the passion she knew she possessed. A man who could reawaken the energy and bravado she had felt during her school years.

"Fancy a drink?"

If you had asked Neville Longbottom twenty years ago if he would ever utter those words to Severus Snape he would have been equal parts terrified and shocked. But Neville Longbottom was not the same nervous boy who had struggled through five years of Potions lessons with the infamous Professor Snape. Neville had killed Nagini, and he felt that some of his reticence and shyness had died too that day. It was hard to be shy when you were a war hero, and it seemed foolish to be nervous when so many people had died and he had lived. Given what he had been through in the final year of the war, Neville was no stranger to struggle. And for Neville, Severus Snape was the epitome of a man who had struggled. So for the past five years, he had made it something of a mission to befriend the potions master.

"Really Longbottom, drinking on a Tuesday night? Isn't that a little premature?"

Snape's voice had never regained its smooth luster, but it was still unmistakably dripping with disdain. Neville had learned not to be put off by his tone of voice.

"Fine words coming from you. One of my first years said she saw you taking a swig from a flask in class."

"Twenty galleons says it was Rose Granger." He had noticed a particularly knowing look in the young girls' eye that was a little too familiar for his tastes.

"Granger-Weasley. And yes." Neville took Severus's conversation as an affirmative response and stepped through the floo into his colleague's office. "I see you've started drinking already." The bottle of Ogden's open on Snape's desk was almost empty.

"You know I prefer drinking your whiskey, Longbottom. Give it here." Neville had been brewing infused firewhiskey for years and had quite perfected the art. Snape couldn't resist its smooth taste - even if it did come with hours of conversation attached. He considered it a small price to pay; at least the boy had improved remarkably since his days in school.

"Have you had a class with Harry's boy yet?" Neville asked. Two years ago he wouldn't have dared ask the question. The arrival of another "James Potter" at Hogwarts had not sat well with Severus initially. But the boy had proven himself utterly abysmal at potions and had no sign of his grandmother's eyes. He had Ginny Weasley's features, and while his temperament might have resembled his grandfather rather than his father, the fact that Snape saw nothing of Lily Evans in him had seemed to come as a huge relief to the former spy. Apart from the occasional insult about his father's fame, Snape largely left the boy alone.

"Ah yes, Albus." The name felt strange on Snape's tongue. It was such an uncommon name, he had rather hoped he would never have to utter it to anyone but the old man's portrait. He preferred not to think about the child's middle name. "Not a complete imbecile. Not a Gryffindor either, which is a relief. I wonder how his parents feel about Ravenclaw."

"Probably much the same as Scorpius' parents feel about him being a Hufflepuff."

"Draco flooed me earlier today. Wanted to know what the hell the hat was thinking. As if I knew. All I do is watch the little fools until that hat sends them their respective ways. Then I only have to deal with a quarter of them." Snape snorted and picked up his glass. "Although, I do wish Lucius was alive to see his grandson sorted into Hufflepuff." Lucius had died two years previously when one of the few remaining dark traps in his basement had gone off at the wrong moment. Snape was loathe to admit that he missed the arrogant git's company. Lucius had been one of the few left from his youth who wasn't a completely evil son of a bitch. "You know, Longbottom, it pains me to say this, but I think this might be your best batch yet," he said, swirling the whiskey in his glass and admiring its amber glow.

"I agree. I'm thinking of sending a bottle on to Susan and Dean. They just had their fourth child."

"Lord have mercy, will your classmates never cease procreating?"

"Beats me. I honestly don't know where half of the them find the time to have children. Dean is an Auror now, and Susan is running Madame Malkin's."

"Potter managed to have three while being an Auror, a Ministry bigwig and a royal pain in the arse. It seems they were all far more multi-talented than I gave them credit for." Snape took a huge swig from his glass and closed his eyes as the searing heat deadened the pain in his neck and vocal cords for a brief, blissful moment.

"He did save your..."

"Not. Another. Word." Snape's eyes shot open and gave Neville a withering glare. "These "conversations" have ground rules, Longbottom."

Neville suppressed a smile and poured his companion another glass. He broke the "ground rules" of their conversations with increasing frequency these days. It was nineteen years since Harry Potter had saved Snape's life on the floor of the Shrieking Shack and he had yet to speak a word about the event. Rumor had it that Harry had used muggle first-aid techniques to revive him. Just the thought of Harry giving mouth-to-mouth to the terror of their childhood brought an involuntary grin to his face.

"You know Longbottom, I've never asked. Why haven't you gotten around to procreating yet?" Nothing but a desire to end the Harry Potter line of conversation could have brought Snape to ask that particular question but he was a desperate man. In the years following the war he had been forced to work hard to regain his reputation as a cruel, unfriendly git with his now uncomfortably hero-worshipping students. Any reference to his Order of Merlin, or his rather unfortunate rescue, needed to be nipped in the bud.

"Er... Never met the right woman, I suppose."

"What about the Lovegood girl? Didn't she live with you for a few years?" Snape couldn't believe he remembered anything about Longbottom's love life, or that he was actually asking questions about it.

"Yeh, she did. She wanted to see the world, I suppose, and I'm pretty happy here." That was the sad truth of it really. No dramatic exit. "Just different goals, in the end."

"This school isn't exactly condusive to relationships for the staff." Snape sipped at his whiskey. "Get that look off your face, I'm not referring to myself. Look at Sprout. Minerva. Filius. Hagrid had to go half way across Europe to find love with a giant for pity's sake."

"I guess we're a pretty sad lot."

"You could say that. I for one am perfectly happy living the life of the lonely bachelor, Longbottom." There was a smugness in his voice that suggested he believed what he was saying. "But you're young, aren't you?"

"Thirty eight."

"Fuck, has it really been that long since you were in school? That explains all the children, I suppose."

"Feeling old, Snape?"

"Sod off. I'm not above taking your whiskey and kicking you out." He was feeling old.

"I have least a hundred years left in me Longbottom and I don't look a day over forty five."

It was true, Neville noticed. While he himself had aged in the past twenty years, Severus had not.

"You're right! How do you.... Hold on, do you use anti-aging potions?"

Snape scoffed and shot him a look that suggested he was out of his mind.

"It is a little known fact that Nagini's venom contained Rhodiola Rosea. In trying to kill me, the Dark Lord assured me eternal youth."

"Golden Root?" Neville screwed up his face in confusion. "But how... Surely Golden Root is far too common to have such a potent affect...?"

"I'm pulling your leg, Longbottom. Do try to keep your wits about you. I look the way I do because I've looked forty years of age since I was twenty-five. Eighteen years of spying took a toll on my body that the past twenty years have not. You just imagine I look younger than I am because when you were my student you assumed I was ancient. I was only thirty eight when you left school." He felt unusually verbose this evening, but he had been drinking since early morning. Nothing seemed to soothe the pain in his vocal cords like firewhiskey and he was sick and tired of the experimental healing balms various "fans" kept sending his way.

Neville nodded slowly.

"You know, you're right. I never really put two and two together and realized you were younger than my parents. That must mean you're only..."

"I think I've had enough of this conversation. Why don't we talk about the ingredients I'll be needing next week. Do you have a quill?"

Neville shook his head as he reached into his robes and found his inked stained quill and note paper. Severus was really rather predictable. Every evening he would allow a certain amount of casual conversation but insisted on ending the night on a professional note lest Neville think they might be friends.

***