They arrived at Snape and Meredith's home at around 5 in the evening. Harry, Hermione, and Ron marveled at the flowers in front of the house which, Snape informed them, was Meredith's work of art. He loosened up a bit after spending the whole afternoon with them. He told Minerva he and Meredith moved into the house right after they got married. It was not a big house but it was cozy.
"Oh oh! I can Alohomora the lock for you, Professor!" Hermione teasingly said, and the others laughed.
"Very funny, Miss Granger. I'll deduct 50 points from Griffyndor for your cheekiness."
"Nonsense, Severus, 5 will do," Minerva said and laughed at his annoyed expression.
Turning the lock open with his key, he stepped inside and was shocked to see the house in a mess as if there had been a fight. His guests appeared equally shocked.
"Meredith?" he called, his voice full of worries. He quickened his pace into the kitchen and saw his wife lying on the floor. "Meredith!"
Her head was bleeding, and blood was dripping out from her nose. She was unconscious. He felt her pulse and performed CPR on her. "Call the ambulance!" he ordered as a tear streamed down his face.
"Allow, me, Severus," Minerva said as she took out her wand. She chanted a spell and Meredith coughed into consciousness. She still lay unable to move. "She's under a paralysis spell," Minerva examined. Again, she chanted another spell and Meredith moved her legs, groaning in pain as she did so.
Severus cradled her in his arms. "You're alright. You're fine. Thank God. You're fine, love," he said as he kissed her head. "Who did this to you?"
"Get me to the hospital, please," she pleaded as she cried, "I need to check..."
"It's OK, Meredith, I'm a... nurse," Hermione interrupted her. She silently cast a sleeping spell and she hovered her wand over Meredith to check for any internal injuries and found none. She cast another healing spell to help heal her wounds and magically clean her face and skin of blood. "She's fine," she assured her former professor who was still cradling his wife. "I think we should get her to bed. Let her rest. Any questions can wait. Or you can use Legilimency spell to..."
"No," Snape sternly refused and carried his wife bridal-style to their bedroom. He lay her on the bed. She looked like she was soundly sleeping. Her breathing was steady. He wanted to stay there with her but he knew she would not approve of him abandoning their guests, so he went out. He checked out the two spare rooms and saw that they had been prepared. He went back to his guests who were gathered in the living room. He saw Ron and Harry use their wands to put everything back to their own places. He did not approve of the use of magic in his house, having lived without it for quite sometime but now, he just could not care less what was happening. He only worried about his wife and he couldn't wait for her to wake up.
"It seems like she had prepared your rooms. You may go freshen up and make yourself comfortable," he told his guests with a surprisingly kind tone. Gone was his cold nature.
Minerva, Hermione, Ron, and Harry obediently went to their rooms. Thinking about dinner which he had no mood to prepare, Snape took out his phone to order some pizzas and Chinese take-aways. Then, he went back to his bedroom to check on his wife. She stirred a bit but did not wake up. He climbed onto the bed and lay on his side, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. He caressed her cheek with his thumb, pulling the hair covering her face behind her ears with his fingers. Once, he found the dead body of his love interest and it had shattered him since. Meeting Meredith gave him a second chance at love, only this time, his feeling was reciprocated, even more than he thought he deserved. He was nothing when he found her but still she fell in love with him. This woman was no Lily. Lily did not see the good sides of him, neither did she try to. Meredith found him a broken man, both physically and mentally, and transformed him into a man he never knew he could be, only with her love and acceptance. If Meredith had existed at the same time Lily did, he was damn sure would still choose Meredith. His eyes were filled to the brim with tears which threatened to fall, realising how close he was to losing her today. He had lived, albeit in bitterness after Lily was gone, but he was sure now, if he lost Meredith, he would never want to live again. He kissed her head, letting his tears fall onto her face.
Suddenly, still in his embrace, Meredith stirred violently, like she did last night.
"No, please don't hurt him! Don't hurt him, please!" she screamed and cried at the same time, her eyes still closed, her hands moving frantically, hitting her husband accidentally at the process.
"Meredith, wake up!" Snape pleaded as he tried to hold her hands as she kept on saying the same thing. The others burst into their room. Just as Minerva wanted to cast a wake-up spell on her, she sat up and her eyes opened, and Minerva hid her wand. Everyone could see the fear in those beautiful eyes. She turned to her husband with a look of relief.
"You're alright! Oh, thank God you're alright!" she said as she leaned her forehead against his and kissed his face repeatedly, before putting her arms around his neck, and cried, saying something about her being glad her husband was safe and unharmed.
"I'm here. Don't worry, I'm here," he assured her as his hand moved up and down her back to soothe her.
Just then, the door bell rang.
"I'll get the door," Ron said.
"Must be the pizza guy. There's money in the drawer, Weasley," Snape said. Ron walked away without the money.
Meredith broke away from Snape. "You ordered pizza? Why did you have to order pizza? I promised to make dinner," she asked with an innocent tone, as if the nightmare she had did not matter at all. Her husband found it so funny he suddenly laughed. The others just smiled at them. "What's so funny?" she asked, sounding annoyed, as she wiped her tear-stained face with her palms, looking annoyed.
"Look at you..." her husband said as he touched her chin with his hand, "you've been through a traumatic incident and could still think about making dinner." He could see her grimace in annoyance. "I'm sorry, come here," he pulled her head towards his lips, "Go freshen up while I prepare dinner... which... has been prepared." He received a punch on his arm for his teasing.
Minerva, Hermione and Harry just laughed, enjoying the entertainment. Somehow, they still could not believe how much Snape had changed. Too much, actually. The man in front of them was not the Snape they used to know. Indeed, this woman was an angel.
"Are you sure that's Professor Snape? Are you sure he didn't die in the war and some crazy guy's soul borrowed his body?" Hermione asked Harry, whispering quietly enough that Snape, Meredith, and Minerva did not hear them.
"Shut up," Harry said teasingly, almost surprised. "I like your assumption, though, Miss Know-It-All."
After Meredith excused herself to go to the bathroom to freshen up, the others went out into the kitchen, where Ron was taking out plates and cutleries from a drawer.
"You really are Molly's child, Ron. She certainly had raised you well," Minerva complimented him, looking at how natural he was at doing housework.
"Thank you, ma'am. I'm training myself in domestic chores to impress Mrs. Granger whose daughter here is reaaaaally bad at it, so that she'll say yes when I ask for her daughter's hand in marriage," Ron said teasingly.
"Shut up, Ron! Who says I'm gonna marry you?" she replied in a serious tone, crossing her hands on her chest, annoyed at being insulted.
"You will, baby," he winked at her, as he walked to the dining table to set the plates. "Oh, Professor Snape, I hope you don't mind..." he said when he saw his former teacher.
"Carry on, Weasley. With a husband like you, Granger's not gonna need a house elf," he said.
"Hahahhahaa!" Hermione laughed as she raised her hand in the air and high-fived her former professor for his wit.
"Oh my God! He just high-fived me!" she mouthed to Harry with a surprise look on her face, when her professor walked away to open the fridge. Harry giggled and continued to help Ron to set the table, as Minerva went to Snape to see if he needed any help.
"I'm sorry you all had to eat take-aways. I feel so bad," Meredith regretfully said as she walked into the kitchen, seeing everyone at work. She was out of her jeans and blouse and now wearing a knee-length dress, which accentuated her curves even more.
"It's alright, Meredith. That's the least we could do after eating all your scones for free this morning. These foods are fine. Love 'em all the same. Like my mum always said, it doesn't matter what we eat, as long as we eat it together," he said with a wink, which made Hermione roll her eyes. "And dinner's on me tonight, everyone. Bought it with the money I won from my girlfriend's father whom I beat at chess five consecutive times when visiting her house last week. That rich teeth healer gave me one hundred pounds for each time he lost. What a generous man," Ron proudly said as everyone took their seat at the table.
"Yeah, he hates you now. And he's a dentist, by the way. Learn Muggle terms if you want to be married to a Muggle's daughter, especially if you want to be the son-in-law of a rich Muggle," Hermione said with a tone of sarcasm, as she helped herself to the Chinese fried noodles in front of her.
"Muggle? What's a Muggle?" Meredith asked, as she served a slice of pizza and two fried chicken balls on her husband's plate. Hermione stopped chewing, nervous, not knowing what to answer. Where's my intelligence when I need it, she asked herself in her head. Snape did not look happy. Harry and Ron just looked at their food, munching away, in an attempt to avoid answering Meredith.
"Muggle is the name of Hermione's village where her parents live," Minerva came to her rescue and everyone nodded vigorously as Snape breathed a sigh of relief. Snape eyed her a grateful smile.
"Oh, you're a lucky chap, Ron," Meredith said with a smile and a wink, as she scooped a spoon of fried rice into her mouth.
The group had a nice dinner with Ron enlivening it mostly with his stories of meeting Hermione's parents which always earned eruptions of laughter from everyone, save for Hermione who claimed the stories were lame and exaggerated. When he realised he had talked too much, he passed the talking baton to Meredith asking her how she got to be Mrs Severus Snape.
"Well, this chap walked into my life four years ago. We became friends, dated two years after that, and married another year after that, which was last year. In fact, next week will be our first wedding anniversary," she said.
"BOOOOOO!" Ron and Harry bellowed.
"What?" Meredith asked, though she knew why.
"Details, please," Harry requested, "Ron told us even the minutest of details in his stories, you're not getting away with a 10-second story on your love life. I was looking forward to the stories of how you met..."
"How he proposed!" Hermione added, cutting Harry's sentence.
"I'm not as good a storyteller as Ron is," Meredith protested. "Besides, why I do I need to tell you the story when you can watch the video of the proposal..."
"No! I'm against it!" Snape protested.
"He cried," Meredith revealed to everyone.
"I did not! It was only a tear! A. Tear," her husband protested again.
"When I said yes," Meredith told the group.
"Did you, Severus?" Minerva asked in surprise.
"I have got to see that!" Hermione declared.
They went on to talk about things, and the three former Hogwarts students told Meredith about how Snape was when he was still teaching, in the Mugglest way possible, leaving all the magic-related details behind. He did not seem offended when they said how nasty he was to his students, but he did try to include his reasons to defend himself whenever he could. When Ron accidentally mentioned Quidditch and did not know how to explain using a magical broom to play it, Harry came to his rescue by explaining that they tossed a ball to their team members and that they used roller-blades to move around. Ron just vigorously nodded his head because he did not know how to explain it better but Hermione, Minerva, and Snape had an expression on their faces that Harry's explanation just did not mirror Quidditch, even in the Mugglest way, at all, but they just kept quiet and smiled at Harry's efforts in providing an explanation.