Summary: SSHG, AU. Harry believed that Hermione had truly lost her ever-loving mind. Everyone understood, but why couldn't she?

A/N: A Happy Valentine's Day Short Story! (I shall blame Ishouldbewritingsomethingelse for reminding me the holiday exists and inspiring a little equinoxian magic)

Warnings: Harry's got ideas on how things should be.

Beta Love: No beta, no love, Publishing unsupervised

No you're not - Dragon AHHH! She caught me again! The Dragon and the Rose

Another Kind of Truth

A Valentine Short Story by Corvus Draconis

"A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea."

Honore de Balzac

"You've lost your ruddy mind, Hermione," Harry said, sipping his tea as if it were just any old tea, yet he always came to her place for tea, claiming the other stuff wasn't nearly as good.

"You think me mad, Harry?" Hermione asked. frowning.

"You'd accept a courtship— from Snape?" His voice barely concealed the disgust.

"He's accomplished and intelligent. We get along. We have gotten along ever since you put us together for that project of yours."

"That was just a work project, not a date."

Hermione stared into her teacup. Gods, he could be so thick.

"It was a five-year project, and it gave the world a cure for lycanthropy. What we did in our off-time, Harry, was none of your bloody business."

"But it was Snape, Hermione. Snape!"

"The man you named your second child after. The man you cleared of his crimes!" Hermione pointed out.

"Not so you could date him!" Harry blurted. "He's Snape! He may have been brave, but he's still an unbelievable git!"

Hermione shook her head. "I never thought I'd say this, but at least Ronald understands."

Harry spewed his tea over his morning fry up, and Hermione was utterly glad she had already eaten breakfast.

"Really, Harry?"

"There's no way Ron would ever be okay with this!"

"Of course, he is. He's marrying Lavender this Sunday, not me, Harry. We were never destined to be anything more than friends. Deluded friends for a time, but friends nonetheless."

"Wait, what?" Harry blurted. "What do you mean he's marrying Lavender?"

"Don't you read your invitations?"

"Well it had Ron's name on it so, I thought you and him had finally set the date!"

"Harry James Potter," Hermione hissed back at him. "It is not my fault that you can't be bothered to open your own mail!"

"This isn't the way it's supposed to be!" Harry protested.

"Dare I even ask what way it is 'supposed' to be!" Hermione seethed, her chocolate eyes narrowed in warning.

"I'm supposed to be with Ginny, and you're supposed to be with Ron!"

"That's total bollocks, Harry," Hermione scoffed. "You may have kids with Ginny, but do you really think she somehow doesn't notice you making eyes at Draco at every single public function?"

Harry turned very red in the face. "No! Why would you even say that?!"

"Don't play me for a fool, Harry Potter," Hermione said, pouring more tea into her cup and drinking it with barely time to let the sugar dissolve in the milk to finish dispersing evenly.

Harry flushed a stunning dark pink, alternating from red to pink and back again. "You're changing the subject!"

"I never liked the subject anyway," Hermione replied dryly. "Look, I didn't try to tell you who to date or who to marry, Harry. And it is not your place to dictate who I see or whom I decide I want to see if we work out to become married. This is my choice and my life, and you should be glad I even told you, as a courtesy, that I planned to at all!"

"If you let him kiss you, you could end up ruddy well married to him!" Harry yelled.

"True love's kiss, Harry?"

Harry paled as he realised what he had just endorsed.

Hermione's smile was utterly smug. "Well, then. You have no right to deny me my chance, do you, Harry? On penalty of wizarding law. No witch or wizard may stand against the uniting of two in true love's kiss and magic's choice lest they spend the remainder of their lives in Azkaban for attempting to prevent a true magical union."

"B-but you can't!" Harry protested. "You've already kissed and there was no marriage!"

"Ah, Skeeter. Bless her downy little deludedhead," Hermione said, chuckling. "This is why you're here, hrm? Because of her blather? Her slander? I should've known."

Hermione crossed her arms in front of her in an eerily familiar manner. "We haven't. We were saving ourselves for courtship— for the spring equinox. The time when magic sings of compatibility. Mind you, we already know we are compatible— mentally, anyway, but I do long to feel his long fingers across my body, caressing me like the wisps of swirling magic off of a simmering cauldron."

"Hermione!" Harry yelled.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Hermione replied easily. "Did you think because I live my life in books and research and wear a healer's circlet for half my week that I'm an utter prude who doesn't want a consenting and devoted lover?"

"Grow up, Harry," Hermione said with a sigh, casting a tempus charm without her wand. "Go tend to your Aurory, go home to your wife and children, and make damn sure that they are all happy."

"Going through with it then?" a familiar voice asked.

Hermione turned. "Ron," she said, putting the last of her things into her beaded bag.

He took her into an embrace then scratched his head with one hand.

"You're totally barmy, you know," he said with a grin, "but if it's what you really want, then it's what you want. Merlin knows I had to beat that into Lav's head with her entire 'but I'm a werewolf' and 'no one can possibly love me' tripe." He said it like he was being callous, but he grinned at her with that familiar, disarming smile.

"She wasn't even a full werewolf. Just like Bill— stuck somewhere wherein eating raw meat was far more appealing than the cooked variety," Hermione said with a smile.

Ron shrugged. "You know people— the stigma of werewolves makes the entire sanity thing flee off into the reeda somewhere." He waved his hand with a roll. "Gods know that it took long enough for mum to stop thinking she had to lock Bill up in a cellar three nights a month when all he wanted was a really nice rare steak and Fleur—"

Ron coughed. "A lot of Fleur. Probably why they had so many kids, yeah?"

Hermione coughed. "Is that why you and Lavender had so many kids? I thought that was just the Weasley genetic fortitude."

Ronald snorted. "Well, we do have fertility in spades for sure," he admitted. "And maybe I am just a wee bit irresistible." He waggled his eyebrows, and Hermione swatted his arm.

"Git," she admonished, fighting back an amused grin.

"Lav calls me sexy."

Hermione held up her hand in a stopping gesture.

"I may think you're as mad as a box of frogs, 'Mione, but—" Ron looked skyward. "You and him have way more in common than anyone else I know, and you guys cured lycanthropy in five years. You didn't kill each other during that time together, locked in the lowest bowels of the dungeon slaving over cauldrons—"

He grinned. "That's two bloody miracles right there."

"Ron!" Hermione protested, crossing her arms.

He laughed. "So, you cured the ones like Lav and Bill and the ones like Remus. It was thanks to your stasis spells on Tonks and Remus that gave Teddy his parents back. It was because you saved Snape that Fred didn't kick the bucket that night— I think you're owed a bit of slack for wanting to be happy. At least you're not pining over that bloody berk Lockhart, yeah?"

Hermione shuddered. She frowned suddenly. "When did you get all reasonable?"

"Why the tone of surprise?" Ron pouted, sticking out his lower lip before smiling again. "I think it was sometime between realising how much we all lost and how much we all still had." Ron looked thoughtful, a wistful wrinkle creasing his brow.

"Thanks, Ron," Hermione said, a genuinely warm smile lighting up her face. "Harry just won't see reason, though," she continued with a sigh.

"Naw, don't you worry about 'arry," Ron replied. "I'll just remind him that just because he married for image instead of love doesn't mean he has to force the rest of us to do the same so we fit into his ruddy pipe dream. I think he'll see reason eventually. He's just hung up on the entire 'Snape loved my mum, so he can't be in love with Hermione' shtick. As if you can't love more than one person. I mean sure, different kinds of love and all that, but saying you can't move on and love someone else? That's barmy. Can you imagine us married like our teenage idiot brains seemed to think was a really great idea?"

Hermione coughed.

"Right. Exactly," Ron said loftily. "You'll never love Quidditch, and I'll never love a book that isn't about Quidditch. Honestly, we'd be a match made in Hades. But friends, yeah. We can do that, yeah?"

"Yeah," Hermione replied. "We can do that." Hermione grinned and fished in her pocket for something. She pulled out a keyring and handed it to Ron.

He took it gingerly as if it could turn into a viper. "Wow, it's really happening, huh?"

"You and the family take good care of the place," Hermione said. "Just be careful of the undertows out there. Don't want your wee bairns washed out to sea."

"Harry is going to flip his gourd," Ron chuckled.

"I left his favourite tea blend in the cupboard for you."

"The Snape blend?" Ron asked.

"Of course."

"You never told him?"

"Nope."

"Wicked," Ron replied, grinning madly. "I'll have a ball letting him know next time he complains about Snape being an evil git."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Really, Ron?"

"Bloke's gotta enjoy his pleasures where he can find 'em," Ron said. "If the bloke can admit that Snape was one of the bravest men he ever knew and that only the two of you together could help Remus with his furry little problem, then why can't he admit that the two of you are way better together than apart? I mean, he doesn't have to pick out curtains with him or anything."

Hermione chuckled. She sobered a bit and frowned. "Gin—"

"I'll tell her, Mione," Ron said with a head bob. "Preferably the very next time she's knackered and delirious enough to test the water."

Hermione half-choked.

"Now, you go on and start that life somewhere without the likes of Rita sodding Skeeter," Ron said. "Maybe, one day, when a few people pull their heads out of their arses, we can do some hols together, yeah?"

Hermione smiled. "Yeah."

Ron placed a fond peck on each cheek. "Now get out of here before Harry decides to stop by for a cuppa Snape's best blend."

Hermione picked up her beaded bag and put it on her belt. "Thanks, Ron."

"Have a good life, Mione," Ron replied warmly.

Hermione closed her eyes, smiling, and with a crack she was gone.

"Show off," Ron muttered as he sent his Patronus out to Lavender to let her know it was time to move the kids into their new, larger place to hopefully scramble Harry's brain when he next came over for tea.

Ron smiled and nodded his head with clear anticipation. It was gonna be great.

"You came," Severus' voice rumbled as he looked out over the ocean cliff and watched the moonlight dancing on the waves.

"Did you think I wouldn't?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, I have thought a great many things," he replied, turning to her with a sombre look on his face. "Many people have given me promises, Hermione, all so seemingly sincere at the time."

Hermione frowned, not meeting his gaze— not wanting to see the look of frank distrust that she believed she'd see here.

His pale finger hooked under her chin and drew her gaze to his. His black eyes seemed to go on forever, reflecting the depths of space. "Forgive my weakness. With each promise you kept, I waited for it to be the last— waiting for it all to end as it always has for me."

"Even after all we've done together?" Hermione asked softly, the disappointment pooling in her stomach.

"Especially so," Severus replied. "You keep all the promises you make, yet so many others before and around you couldn't do the same. I kept waiting for the illusion to break— the expiry date to arrive at last. And this—"

Snape stared across the ocean. "This was the final countdown to what my heart most wished for but my mind believed would be the time when reality would send me crashing to Earth once more."

He turned to her, his finger capturing a tear from her cheek. "Yet, here I waited, hoping beyond hope, that both our promises would be kept."

The magic thrummed between them, and even the simple touch of one finger upon her cheek caused Hermione's legs to buckle, and a certain heat to ripple from the ground up. "And what did you promise me, my sweet?"

His voice was sin wrapped in chocolate, and his very masculine rumble strummed chords she hadn't realised she had. Oh, she had heard him speak so many times, but no—

This was different.

Possessive.

Promising.

Enticing.

Always before, they had been careful never to step outside the clearly marked boundaries of propriety. They had agreed to test either the beginning of courtship or— if magic proved willing and eager— a marriage of magic and souls with the coming of the spring equinox: a time of beginnings and growth.

"I—" her voice was trembling, and his smile was wicked. He knew well what his voice did to her. "I promised that should our magic bind us, I would not turn you away, no matter what form you took, for you seemed to believe if I knew the truth of what you were, that I would turn you away."

He was so near her, now. His face but a fraction of an inch from hers that his warmth felt radiant against her. "And I promised that should magic judge us worthy, I would share with you the very dance of eternity that your mind may never grow weary, that your body would know pleasure that others could only dream of—that no other could satisfy you or I but the other."

Snape's eyes were impossibly dark, and they seemed to smoulder. "Would you bind yourself to me— not knowing what I could be?"

Hermione shook her head. "No."

Snape's body stiffened, still as stone.

"I would bind myself to you knowing full well what you are," she said, her fingers touching the line of his jaw. "What you could be is immaterial."

He stared at her in wonder. "This is a time of power. A time of beginnings," he said, his voice like a distant roll of thunder. "If magic judges us rooted to the other, we will then— entangle."

"We've danced around each other for long enough, don't you think?" Hermione whispered. The air seemed to grow colder, but their mutual heat seemed to draw the other— like moths to the other's flames.

"Severus," she said quietly, her voice a seeming roar in the thick silence.

"Hermione."

He was so close, his heat rising impossibly high. She felt as though she was going to burn, yet she ached for it— his touch.

"Magic's Judgment, Magic's Price—" he said, his head dipping. "Shall we trust in Magic's Dice?"

"Magic's Fervor, Magic's Heart," she replied. "I shall trust in it to make our start."

His lips brushed against hers, and she opened her mouth to accept his kiss. The drive of tongue and breath heralded the powerful flood of magic that seemed to rise from their bodies to mingle like breath. Their bodies struggled to be free of the confining clothing even as their magic struggled to free of the flesh, both struggling to merge with the other. Their pants and moans increased with the rise of pure need.

Magic swirled around them both, entwining, tightening—

Their clothes fell away as their bodies pressed together, and Hermione's whimpers of need grew higher as Severus worshipped her body, leaving no inch of skin unexplored.

He breathed her name into one ear, this tongue teasing the lobe as she shuddered against him. "Together we shall always be, bound together for eternity."

He kissed her neck, sucking on the skin to heighten her pleasure, and she bucked against him.

"Severus," she gasped.

"Join with me this night, this power—" His eyes were so very black, his lips parted as his tongue slid across them with anticipation. "Share with me this witching hour."

"Yes— gods, yes!" Hermione pulled him down upon herself, attaching herself in a driven kiss even as he sheathed himself within her burning heat. She shrieked as he drove into her again and again, each thrust eliciting a scream of ecstasy fulfilled. Each time, she thought herself dying, but each time she came back to life, staring into her mate's soul through his eyes as he lost himself in her— bodies spasming as both the physical and magical mated together and remained entwined.

He enfolded her within his arms, his hands clutching her slim back as he rode the flood of passion that had driven them to consummation. Their magic drew tight as it merged to become something altogether new. His body shuddered, unable to contain the smouldering truth that had been buried deep inside for years upon years.

It seemed his limbs had transformed to tar, his body writhing as it moved and twisted. The head and neck of a great black horse curved around her, pulling her to his expansive neck as seaweed entangled her hair from his growing, snarled mane. Water poured from his body as if from a bottomless spring. Tendrils of water, weeds, and tar slithered outward toward her— questing, needing.

Hermione wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face against the warm equine neck. She allowed the tendrils to pull against her, wrap themselves around her body, and draw her into his searing warmth.

Hermione, his voice whispered, all around her. This is what I am— can you love once such as I, forsake a word that will never understand us, to live as long as water exists?

Hermione held the "horse's" head in her hands, pressing her head to the top of his velvety nose.

"A kelpie," she whispered, even as strands of seaweed curled around her ear like a caress.

Perhaps, his voice mused, unsure. I don't really know what I am— only that I exist, and water feels like home. It calls to me, more as time goes on. As you do.

He seemed to ponder, warm air expelling from his nostrils. My father loved my mum, but she made him move to where the water was sadly polluted— tainted. It was small or too deep, and she would only lie with him as a man. Each day, the confinement drove him to anger, to the madness of his chosen prison— his bridle forged of love became his torment, and I was an unfortunate reminder of it. One more noose around a neck too strong and stubborn to break. He had already lain with her. He had already made his choice— and I— I was his jailor, albeit unknowingly.

Hermione rubbed his velvet nose, made so much smoother by the feel of water across it. "To bind one's self to another. If you could be so willing to do so for me. What kind of person would I be to force you to leave behind what you truly are?"

Yet, inevitably— I must ask that of you. To leave behind the land for love of me. I cannot and will not be my father. I will not whither and die as he did, making the world my enemy to be blamed for my own choices.

"I have no anchor that ties me to the land, Severus. You are my anchor, and wherever you go, I will join you there. Magic has approved of us. I would be a fool to turn my back on that after all we have been through together."

The stallion's whicker was low, the earth seemingly rumbling beneath her feet. He curved his neck, using the bottom of his head to press her closer into his body. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her hands weaving into his mane of weeds and hair. The tarlike-skin oozed between her fingers, pulling her in, but she did not fight it.

Myth said the Kelpie would drag a person to their death, leaving only the person's entrails upon the shore. Others said that putting a bridle upon the Kelpie would force it to become docile and work for the one that did so. But all of these things were the things of books, and her heart demanded she look elsewhere.

Perhaps those stories were right, after all.

But, perhaps, they were only a part of a greater truth. There was another kind of truth that came from the heart.

Now, faced with the choice of a life with the one she was truly compatible with or a meaningless one in whatever mundality the Wizarding world had for her, Hermione Granger put the books away and let her heart decide for her. "I chose a life with you, Severus. I believe in you."

She pressed her face into the softening, tar-like neck. "I love you."

Vines and tendrils slithered over her skin as she seemed to sink slowly into his body. The warm tar seemed to seep into her pores, ooze into her nostrils, pour into her mouth. Her breaths came deep and even, just as if she was breathing air. It surrounded and cradled her, bathed and saturated every inch of her, drawing her into its all-encompassing depths.

"Severus," she whispered tenderly as her body disappeared into the writhing, swirling tar and weeds.

"SNAPE!" A thunderous crack and a roar of sound came as Harry sodding Potter rode the waves of his own personal tsunami, fueled by hate and fury, to the so-called rescue of Hermione Granger from her own "stupidity"—

But there was no Hermione Granger left for him to save.

There was only Hermione Snape, and she had made her choice long before this night when magic only confirmed what her heart had been singing to her all along.

Harry tried to throw a spell—

The kelpie stallion reared, his black form seeming to tower even greater, his form shifting to protect what incubated within his body.

"NO!" Ron came tumbling out of a hasty Apparate. His arms locked tightly around Harry's waist, and he tackled him to the ground. "It's her choice, you ruddy bastard! Her choice!"

"Not with HIM! He loved MY MUM!" Harry howled, his contradictory psychosis seemed to begin and end with his mum on a pedestal.

"GO!" Ron yelled, his locked embrace with the fiercely struggling Harry tightening.

The black kelpie stallion's nostrils flared as his hooves touched the earth once more. He seemed to dip his head but a fraction towards Ron before he spun and jumped off the seaside cliff.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Harry suddenly broke free and he punched Ron directly in the face to knock him backward. He scrambled to the cliff's edge and stared down into the churning whirlpool of black water below.

On the surface of the water drifted a pinkish white hint of entrails.

Then nothing more but seafoam.

Harry Potter howled in impotent frustration and thwarted rage.

"Ron, they're here!" Lavender called happily from the kitchen as she looked out of the sink-side window.

Ron set down his copy of The Daily Prophet in which Skeeter had proudly published yet another rot-article about the torrid affairs of Harry Potter with varied partners that ranged from men to women— all of them causing more drama for his little sister and her children.

Grain of truth or not, Skeeter had never cared, and with Severus and Hermione Snape listed officially as missing since their magical marriage was registered at the Ministry's office, Skeeter was forced to victimise someone else.

Mummy issues, Lav had commented.

To put it mildly, Ron agreed.

At least Malfoy had pulled his head out of his arse and finally realised that pining over Harry Potter wasn't' getting him anywhere, and so he had married Astoria Greengrass a few years ago. Their son, Scorpius, was a mischievous little brat, but he was also a real charmer and really knew how to work a crowd. It seemed to be real love between them, and that seemed to solve the charm of thinking you really wanted something. The joyful feeling of having, however, now that was real.

Hermione had said that of him and Lav— what they had was something they could build on for a lifetime as a couple. Chasing a dream with no real foundation could end so many ways.

As Ron opened the door, he smiled broadly as Hermione smiled at him, carrying a basket of highly coveted sea foods and other treasures— including some beautiful golden pearls for Lavender, huge, rare lobsters for dinner, and some colorful, shiny and highly polished oceanic stones for the kids to oogle and play with.

Ryder, Laurel, and Veronica eagerly pounced on the basket before even giving Hermione a second look, causing Lavender to give them what had become known as the trademark Weasley-mum telling off, and the chastened kids slowly turned to give Hermione the hug and kiss that social politeness demanded before running off to compare their latest treasures from the sea.

Ron sighed. "Sorry about that."

Snape— Severus walked in behind Hermione, his dark eyes as fathomless as ever. There was just a hint of seaweed in his hair, just like Hermione's, but he looked as he always did just as Hermione looked just as they remembered her. Not a day or a single wrinkle older. "I see children are still much the dunderheads I remember them to be."

"Severus," Hermione chided, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his nose and cheek.

"Hi, uncle Ron!" The eldest Snape "child" chimed as she playfully pounced like a baby monkey on his back. She kissed his cheek, leaving a small smudge of tar-like liquid behind.

"Hello there, rascal," Ron greeted her cheerfully, giving her a peck on the cheek. "How are you today, Skye?"

"We sank a poaching ship!" Hunter blurted out proudly

"You had plenty of help," Shannon and Heath added, glowering at him.

Skye shrugged with a childlike innocent "who knows" expression on her pretty face.

She leaned over and whispered into Ron's ear. "Mummy really hates it when land-people hunt whales during calving season."

Ron chuckled, ruffling her bushy black, weedy hair. "I'm sure she does, sweet." If house-elves were any indicator of Hermione's tendency towards righteous crusades, it didn't surprise him at all that she'd found other things to focus her fervour upon.

"Hermione!" Lavender cried, wiping her hands on her apron to hug and kiss Hermione's cheeks. She stared up at Severus, having realised that it wasn't just from a child's perspective that the man seemed overly tall.

Sn—Severus leaned down to allow for social graces, much to her relief. She kissed each pale cheek and gave him a warm welcome. "Come sit down. Dinner is ready! Thank you so much for those enormous lobsters!"

Their Christmas table was always bustling with food, but unlike on the tables Ron remembered from growing up at the Burrow, they had enough to afford much more than mashed turnips and boiled sprouts. The lobsters they would have later and before his parents could visit and demand to know where they got them.

No, this was their private family affair. Fewer prying. curious eyes, and loose lips to spread the news back to Skeeter. He loved his family, but damn if they couldn't stop gossiping and keep their collective noses out of other people's business.

As they linked hands to give thanks for the Christmas bounty— something he never failed to do after growing up poor— he had to smile as his kids treated the Snape children just like any other kids, despite some obvious weed-wearing differences. Oh, sure, sometimes Ryder, Laurel, and Veronica would ride on the Kelpies' backs down the beach, but they seemed to realise that it was a gift to be able to do so and not be dragged into the sea and drowned just for being human.

He had a growing suspicion that Laurel and Heath would end up together in the end. Their friendship was already inseparable, and Ron recognised the burgeoning protectiveness in Heath's demeanor when it came to Laurel and her righteous "Weasley-fury" whenever anyone dared speak ill of Heath in her hearing— the way she would always reach for Heath's hand and how she would never wipe the tar-like moisture off on her own.

Lav seemed strangely comforted by it. "You know, what I wouldn't have given as a young girl to know who I was destined to be with? I think it's every young witch's dream to feel meant for someone. To know. Not to guess but to know."

Ron had never really thought of it that way. After all, his brain had thought he and 'Mione would be together and vice versa, and now he realised that was about as mad as a box of frogs looking back on that entire memory.

"Today, we give thanks for our family and friends. May our friendships last longer than they already have, and may we never forget what we have."

"Don't forget about love, daddy!" Laurel chimed in, looking at a rather flushed Heath.

"Ugh," Ryder said, rolling his eyes with mock disgust.

"May the love we have be a lesson to all that come after us," Sn— gods, would he ever call him Severus first?—Severus said with a small tug at his lips.

"May those who came before be swiftly nipped about the arse," Hermione added smugly.

Giggles filled the dining room as Ron grinned and shook his head at his longtime best mate.

"May what we have always be enough," Ron said, thinking of how many years he spent wishing for more and better but failing to remember to be grateful for what he did have. "But let us not be blind to the blessings we stumble upon along the way."

Hermione was looking at him with a wistful expression. "You've really grown up, Ron." There was no malice there. If anything, she seemed a bit watery-eyed at the thought.

"Always the tone of surprise," he huffed, giving her a cheeky wink.

Hermione smiled at him, and in that moment, he felt her magic dance upon his skin like the hint of a summer sun.

"Mummy? Kelpie rides after dinner?" Veronica begged.

Lavender rolled her eyes.

"Pleeeaaaaase?"

"That's up to them, Veronica," Lavender said. "And if you eat all your dinner without complaints."

"And washed the dishes properly," Ron added. He winked at Hermione, and Hermione closed her eyes as she smiled, her eyes disappearing into her grin.

Ron would realise later that night as he spooned against his wife in the warmth of the Christmas fire, that dinner had never gone so smoothly until the Snapes were in attendance and the winter had never seemed so warm.

"Happy Christmas, love," he whispered into Lavender's hair.

Three doors down, Laurel and Heath lay curled up together under the warmth of a thick duvet, the book they had dragged in to read together having been forgotten in the lure and lull of sleep.

Heath made a soft whickering noise in his sleep, small strands of seaweed entangling in Laurel's welcoming mane of reddish-blonde hair.

Far out in the warmer deep sea, the blackest of black stallion kelpies danced in the water for his beloved mate, showing off his prowess and grace as he flitted to and fro in the moonlit water. The amber kelpie swished back and forth with the current, allowing her stallion to wrap his tendrils around her and attend to her pleasure. Their combined cries filtered through the depths like the songs of whales as they kept their promises to each other each and every night until the seas were naught but stories told by mice guarding a matchbox containing the whole sprawling, spiral universe.

And they lived happily ever after.

Always.

Fin.

A/N: See, Ron can be a great human being as long as he's not with Hermione! XD Okay, sorry. Harry was a dick in this one. Someone had to be.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thank Dragon and the Rose for having caught me publishing unsupervised and fixing that problem forthwith.