This story is in connection with my other HP fanfics. Don't understand a reference, go read Albus Potter and the Howling Mountain. Or a few of my other, very very much earlier HP fanfics. You have been warned, you will not understand a word really without reading my previous fics. This is sorta worldbuilding. Or just a random potshot at a story about how Nurse came to care for Vivian. Even if you haven't met Nurse yet in any of the fics I wrote before... . - . Dumb title is dumb and random.

How the Nice of Snape met her Nurse

The night was cold and snowy. The dead of winter in Britain wasn't kind to one of the few souls out in the rough weather that night, wrapped in a threadbare jacket that barely snapped over her engorged middle and didn't keep out the cold very well at all. Luckily, she made it to her destination….just in time for the winds to kick up.

With a groan, the shivering pregnant woman knocked on her one time friend's front door. A woman of stout proportions opened the door not moments later. Brown eyes widened, taking in the shivering and very very obviously pregnant figure before her.

"Holly…"

"Grace! Grace Snape! What are ye doin' here… and… and with- no matter, come in- NOW, mind you, that cold isn't good for ye or th' baby…"

The stout brunette hustled the pregnant black-haired woman inside. Holly couldn't help but notice how thin her friend was in every place but that large belly – it almost seemed as if the life and health had been sucked out of her with the baby growing in her. Holly still had no idea how that happened. Grace had been divorced from her last husband over losing two of her other children, along with a nasty combination of said husband attempting to pass off a mistress' child for Grace's own stillborn child. Grace had known- she had always known things she shouldn't- KNOWN the moment that baby entered her sight that it wasn't her own, and the resulting blowup had reputedly been intense. Grace had difficulty recovering from the divorce, becoming… different. Married to her work more than social interaction of any kind, and eventually even Holly had mostly given up on trying to reach her one-time best friend. It had been three years since that divorce, though, so how… How did her Potions-loving estranged friend end up on her doorstep looking nine months pregnant and ready to deliver at any moment?

She settled her pregnant friend onto the pull out sofa her own husband had bought not a week before his death, bless his soul. Holly was careful touching Grace; even when Grace wasn't in a delicate state like this, she had trouble with touch from other people. Didn't like it like most human beings would. Contrary to what had happened before, when they were still close even, Grace leaned into Holly's touch- seemingly unable to move very well on her own. Holly started casting, a Warming Charm first off to heat the blankets to comfortable levels for Grace, and then spells to remove her friend's sopping wet clothes- do NOT ask how she knew these, it was an embarrassing story- and generally busied herself making sure her friend hadn't and wouldn't catch a cold or something worse.

"I...need help, with the birth….knew you were a Healer, at St. Mungos…. Didn't know if you'd be home this late…"

"Shush. No need to explain yerself. Save your breath til I have you comfortably settled… Though, exactly how far along are ye, do ye think?"

"Six months."

"Six! Bloody hell… Twins then..?... Are ye sure you 'aint nine months? Ye look so."

"No. Just one. She grew quickly… Especially after he left…I understand his species grows differently in the womb, and he had no idea either that I could be impregnanted…"

"'He?' 'No idea that ye could get pregnant?' Dammit Gracie, ye have some explaining t' do…. And be HONEST fer once!"

"I don't lie to you, Holls. I can explain."

"Get to it then!"

Eventually, Holly got the truth out of Grace. The "he" she had been referring to was an attractive man that Grace had met at the apothecary. Made sense, as it was one of the few places Grace would exit her home to go to since the divorce from the rat bastard who shall not be named. They had spoken, chatted on ingredients, a relationship forming- albeit one that never left the apothecary, which made the reserved Potions genius comfortable it seemed- and eventually Grace had been coaxed to go out to dinner with the man. They had had a wonderful time, and…. Well, one glass of fine alchohol had led to another and another. Then one thing led to another and Grace was waking up alone after a night of sex with wild abandon. A month later, there was a missed period. Another month of a missed menstrual cycle, no sign of the man. The third month, when her belly began to grow and she still missed her cycle, she had realized she was pregnant. Denial set in by the fourth month when she still hadn't lost the child. It took two more months to realize this wasn't a normal pregnancy… And of course, the paranoid Witch proceeded to reach out to the one Healer she had trusted from her Hogwarts days onwards. Despite not reaching out at all for at least a solid year….

"…You are an idiot, Grace Snape."

"I know."

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The day was grey. Everything seemed to be in shades of it. Grey marble tombstone was lighter than the stormy sky above, threatening rain. The air smelled of ozone, like lightning would strike presently. Holly welcomed it at this point. She'd come prepared, an umbrella was in the bag beside her foldout chair. Said bag also held a few more items for the little life in front of her… The only remnant she had of her best friend.

Holly sat numbly by the grave, infant bundled into her arms. The little creature looked up at her with those deep brown, almost black eyes that were once the trademark of her mother out of a face paler than her tanned friend had ever been. That skin must be a trademark of the father, Holly mused distantly. She wouldn't have known, Grace had never told her what the man looked like. A fragile little hand squirmed its way out of the black blanket bundle she had been wrapped in, vaguely grabbing at a lock of Holly's greying brunette hair.

Her friend had died to bring her little child into the world. When Holly had begged Grace to let her terminate the child- realizing, only too late, that whatever species the child was it was sucking the life from Grace- Grace had refused to allow it. Thus, Holly had presided over the birth of this little one three months after she had accepted a heavily pregnant Grace into her home. Grace had held her child only long enough to name her- "Vivian Holly Raeven, not Snape… Too many bad memories…"- before something had simply….died…. in her eyes, and her body went limp. Holly discovered later that her friend had been bleeding internally, something had ruptured during the birth….and she hadn't noticed. Holly had essentially killed her best friend, not the child. If Holly had been more vigilant…. She may have been watching a happy mother and child today, not standing beside a grave after a poorly attended funeral and holding a near newborn infant in her arms.
"Aaaah…maaaa….bo…."

Holly almost snorted at the notion the baby's nonsensical sounds put into her head.

"No, Vivian….. I'm not your mother. I'm not."

A whiny, whimpery noise came out of the infant that Holly had come to recognize as "I'm hungry, feed me."

"Patience… I am not your wet nurse, I have to prepare a bottle…."

She laid the infant down in the travelling bassinet she had conjured from a lavender-scented handkerchief. Holly then proceeded to grab some of the instant formula, fumbling with the bottle until she held both the bottle with some powdered formula in the bottom and her wand at the ready. Looking about, so no stupid Muggle would see her accidentally in the newly abandoned graveyard (even the gravediggers were done by this time), Holly muttered the charm for warm water. It sprayed from her wand tip into the bottle, mixing quickly after Holly stuck her wand back in her pocket and shook the bottle up a little with the top on. After double checking the temperature, Holly picked the little infant back up and proffered the rubber nipple to the baby.

She whined and pushed it away, not liking the rubbery taste. Holly groaned, biting her lip.

"Nurse, why don't you…."

The idea hit. While she wasn't Vivian's mother… Holly would most likely be taking care of her for most of her life. If things didn't abruptly go to shite like they did this time. The role would be like… a nurse, she supposed. Holly proceeded to cast a flavoring charm that would swap the taste of rubber for the taste of sweetness. The complex spell left her a bit drained, but to her delight Vivian started drinking from the bottle at last.

"I'm not your Mother, yes…. But I… Call me Nurse. I hope you will. I'll try to tell you about your mother… Get you to differentiate us. She loved you, I know… And I… You're my…. I only have you now. My husband…. My best friend….. All of them are dead. You're…still here. I hope we can be good to each other…."

Vivian finished the bottle, and gave a small hiccup. Holly smiled a little, going to burp her. The baby gave a little burp only moments later, and cuddled down into Holly's shoulder. The older woman gently moved the child into her arms, carefully cuddling the baby to her. Vivian looked up at her and smiled happily.

"…So sweet. At least… At least I have you, little one. For you, then, Vivian…. For you I'll stay." Holly kissed the infant's head. With that, she tucked the infant back into the bassinet with all the associated blankets and paraphernalia. With a last, brief look at her friend's as yet unmarked grave- Holly would remedy that later, she swore- Holly carried the tiny child in the bassinet out of the graveyard and into their new life.

Okay... This is a rather late return to my HP fanfics. The story- sort of- of how Vivian was conceived and born and how she ended up with Nurse instead of her mother. In my head, Vivian's Nurse is called Holly and was once a Healer at St. Mungos. I'll leave how Nurse and Vivi got to the orphanige and maybe the actual night of her birth to another ficlet. Or another chappie to this one, or a flashback in story...Dunno.

Love, hugs, and cookies to all who review

-June

EDIT: Wow... Wait, this is my fiftieth story. I didn't realize till I looked at the count on the writer profile search... Wowie...