"Alright. I want you all to behave as good as you can. Should we get any complaints about anyone of you, such trips will not be allowed in the future."

His tone was even, completely even, as though he didn't really care about what he told them.

"This goes for you two as well."

He bent down and looked at the two innocently smiling boys standing in front of his apprentice.

"Yes, Sev."

They nodded and smiled even wider showcasing the several gaps between their teeth.

+++++++

"What are you going to dress up as?" Severus was trying to approach this subject rather subtle, not knowing how she would take this.

"I'm not sure if I will dress up at all. I'm not even sure whether I will attend or not. I was thinking about volunteering for staff duty that night. You know, patrolling the corridors, scaring children by sneaking up on them and then deducting house points." Hermione smiled over at him knowing that he got her reference to his former antics.

"Those were my initial plans, too. However, Minerva saw fit to remind me of a rather important thing concerning this masquerade ball or any social gathering in general. It is a tradition that master and apprentice of the opposite gender attend things like that together. It is so common that it has become an unwritten law. Minerva tried to get me to attend balls and things like that for the last two decades. Unsuccessfully, I might add. I do believe that she's rather smug about the fact that now I have to attend and with a female companion at that, too. I'd even say that she schemed this all with a little help of a certain old and long-bearded ex-headmaster, but that wouldn't make any sense."

"You're rambling, Severus. You never do that, and it doesn't suit you. Just so you know, I don't mind attending with you. In fact, I couldn't ask for a more intelligent person to be accompanied by, thinking that if things were different I most likely would be attending with Ron, and I'm honestly really glad I don't have to."

They went on walking down the path leading to Hogsmeade with their students walking a few metres in front of them and the two troublemakers running through the freshly fallen leaves while squealing.
Shoving his hands in his pockets to keep them somewhat warm, Severus said: "That leads me to my initial question of what you are going to wear?"

"Seeing as I hadn't considered going at all until a few minutes ago, I'll just buy a nice dress and go with a traditional mask to keep everything simple. There's no need for some flamboyant clothes, at least in my opinion."

She looked at the two boys throwing leaves at each other and dodging the ones being thrown in their direction.

"What about you?"

"Probably just some nice dress-robes and a mask just like you. I'm not the type of person who dresses up in fancy costumes when something simple is doing the job just as well."

Hermione nodded at this before noticing that they had arrived in the small village and that the students were already running towards Honeydukes and Zonkos.

"Let's go and buy some clothes first. Maybe we'll have enough time for a butterbeer afterwards, don't you think?"

He nodded at her request. "Harry, Draco. Come, there's enough time to play when we're finished, okay?"

The boys came running, and together they made their way into the rather small looking clothing shop.

~~~~~~~~

"Hello, how can I help you?" A friendly middle-aged shop assistant quickly made her way over towards them.

Upon seeing her, the two boys suddenly felt like playing small children and hid behind the adults' legs.

"Harry, Draco, you don't need to hide. Be polite and come here, okay? Sorry. We're looking for some outfits for those two and for ourselves."

Severus' tone was polite and to his surprise, Harry and Draco did what he told them.

"I think we should start with those two young gentlemen. What is the occasion you need the outfits for?" Asked the assistant already turning on her heel walking towards the children's section of the shop.

"It's a Halloween masquerade ball, but we want to keep everything quite simple, so we're just looking for some suits." Hermione started following her with the others trailing after her.

"Let's start with the two fine lads, shall we? Come here, boys. I have to take some measurements before I can show you some outfits that would suit you well."

She kindly smiled at the four people before her and watched the boys walking towards her before instructing the both of them to stand on two platforms while she summoned some magical measuring instruments.

Hermione and Severus sat down while the assistant did her job.

Once finished with that she went and after some time she returned with both arms full of suits.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Now, I have a smaller selection here of things that could suit you. Maybe choose the colour you like best to try on first, okay?"

She hung the suits one next to the other for the boys to look at.

Harry decided to try on a dark blue one and Draco liked a stone grey coloured one the most.

Quickly they changed into them and upon seeing the smiles on their faces everyone knew that they had found their suits.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another hour was spent at the small shop until everyone had their Halloween outfits.

Severus shrunk down the numerous bags filled with clothing and stashed them away in his cloak pocket before the four of them left for something warm to drink at the three broomsticks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That evening the boys were exhausted and went to bed rather early leaving the adults to sit in the living room in companionable silence reading.

At least they did that until Severus finally decided to ask her what her dreams were about, as her thrashing and crying had him a bit more than slightly concerned.

"Now that the children aren't here to snoop around I can finally ask you. What exactly were you dreaming last night, you were screaming at the top of your lungs?" He had already put his book away and watched her do the same to hers.

"I haven't told this to anyone because I never had to, and I did not feel comfortable doing so on my own. 

Well, during the war Harry, Ron and I were captured and held at Malfoy Manor until we could escape with Dobby's help as you surely know. 

We had just found the sword of Gryffindor in a lake on the run, and they found it in my bag when they searched it. Bellatrix went insane when she saw it. She believed you had put the original one into her vault at Gringotts, and she thought that we might have stolen something else. She knew that he hid a horcrux in there. Not only that, but she had Harry and Ron thrown into the dungeons to Ollivander, Luna and Griphook while she... while she tortured me. She used the cruciatus to get me to talk about what else we had stolen from her vault. When I told her that we didn't steal anything she used her knife to brand me. The blade had something on it that made the wound open again and again. Now it's closed and only a mere scar, but it still hurts just the same."

Telling him what happened really took a toll on her. She sat there, looking down at her feet while fighting the tears threatening to roll down her cheeks.

Once she ended she couldn't hold them back any more, and soon they were freely rolling down her face.

He looked over at the petite shaking form of his young apprentice before he stood up and walked over to her taking her into his arms to offer her some sort of comfort.