The arguing ceased and the room fell silent, all eyes on him.
"There had been another prophecy." He said calmly, hesitating for effect, "that the only wizard powerful enough to defeat Voldemort would be in the blood line of Potter."
Mrs. Weaseley was the first to speak.
"That's impossible. Harry didn't have any children."
"Maybe not that have been born yet. Maybe he left a little something of himself behind." He said, suggestively raising an eyebrow.
Everyone in the room turned to look at Ginny. She took a step backwards from the accusing stares.
"I didn't. We didn't. I swear."
The group advanced on her.
"Come on Ginny, we just want to help you."
Still Ginny protested, "I didn't even see him until the final battle. He was off finding the horocruxes with Hermione. I didn't see him for months."
Severus looked up, past the Order members towards where Hermione has been standing only minutes before. The spot was empty. As the Weasleys and other Order members continued to grill Ginny on the physical relationship between her and the late Harry Potter, Severus slipped out of the room and into the hallway, closing the door softly behind him. The girl stood in the hallway, eyes closed with her head back, leaning her body against the wall for support. She was breathing heavily, bordering on hyperventilating. He moved closer to her until he was standing directly in front of her. He wasn't even sure she had heard him enter the hall when all of a sudden her eyes snapped open, staring directly into his. He had never seen this look in her eyes, this look of fear.
"How do I know?" she barely whispered
"I can perform a spell…"
She closed her eyes again and gave a small nod.
He took another step towards her, lifted her shirt and placed his cool hand against her warm stomach. He started muttering the incantation, but she wasn't paying attention. Her thoughts were swirling around her. The only thing that was keeping her sane, keeping her tied to this world was the cold hand on her stomach. He finished the spell and a small jolt of electricity shot through her body. Her eyes flew open.
"You felt something?" he asked her very seriously.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
He couldn't bring himself to say anything, but the look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.
In the other room, the group had finally caught on that there was no way that Ginny could be pregnant and had come to the only logical conclusion. The door swung open and then all spilled out into the hall. Snape still had his hand on Hermione's bare stomach and they were staring intensely into each other's eyes.
"What do I do?" she asked softly, still staring at him as if there was no one else in the room.
"You can't run. That's the first thing he will be looking for. You must hide in plain sight. You must offer another father for the child to hide the identity of the real father."
Ron pushed though the crowd of bodies until he reached the area where Snape and Hermione were standing.
"I'll do it Hermione. I'll marry you and we'll pretend it's mine and we'll raise Harry's child together and…"
"and when the child comes out without red hair, more than a few eyebrows will be raised," Snape interrupted, "You need to pick a man who physically could convincingly be the father of Potter's child."
"Are you offering?" she asked timidly.
"Yes."
There were quite a few gasps in the room.
This was not how he had planned on the night going when he had stepped into the building. He had planned on finding out if the Weasley girl was pregnant and then leaving the Order to their feeble attempt to protect her. He figured a half-Potter, half-red-headed-idiot child had no chance of survival. But with Granger as its mother, this child had a chance. With Granger's intelligence and Potter's power and connection to the Dark Lord….this child might just be able to do it. Yes, he had planned on leaving quickly, but something forced him to continue.
"The child could convincingly look like mine. I could marry you and we could raise the child together. I have the knowledge to teach both you and the child what you will need to know to survive. And if everything else fails…I will protect you both."
She stared at him for a minute while everyone else in the hallway remained silent.
"I have some questions" she said hesitantly.
"Of couse you do," she could see the small smile on his lips, "perhaps we should discuss them somewhere more private." He started off down the hall to the library. She followed. Ron broke free from the crowd, following the two of them halfway down the hallway.
"Hermione! I love you. Don't you love me?"
She swallowed and turned slowly to face him. Severus stopped walking, but did not turn around.
"Ron," she said slowly, "If I loved you, I wouldn't have fucked Harry, would I?"
Severus didn't need to turn around to be able to picture the look of shock and devastation that would be on the boy's face right now. He smiled to himself and held the library door open as Hermione entered. "
"And if you did love him?" he asked her as she cast a silencing spell on the room.
"I still would have chosen you." She said softly, as if realizing something about herself for the first time, "You are the logical choice."
He nodded his head in the same way he would do in his class when one of the students gave the answer he was looking for. Some men, most men, would want love, want passion. He was not one of these men. He wanted a wife who was capable of making these important choices based on logic, not emotion. This girl standing in front of him was a woman who could do this. He had always seen this potential in her, but the emotions were still too powerful, she was still a girl. It had taken a war, it had taken this situation, to strip away these emotions from her, to leave her only with what she did best, logic. It was her tool for survival. Most women upon hearing they were carrying their dead best friend's unborn child would have broken down, would have gotten hysterical. She had simply asked him what she should do. It had not been a rhetorical question, she had immediately set about figuring out a course of action. As soon as he had heard her question, he had known that this was the woman he wanted as a wife.
They sat down into facing armchairs. She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. He raised his eyebrow at her, waiting for her to begin.
"Did you kill Albus Dumbledore?"
"Yes."
A moment of silence.
"He asked me to. He was dying already."
She nodded.
It was his turn.
"Did you love him?" The "him" remained unspoken, but she knew he was referring to Harry.
"Yes, but not in that way. I loved him as a friend."
"So the sex…it was purely physical?" He had to know, this could complicate things.
"No, it was emotional, just not the right emotions. We were scared, frustrated, alone. We were being hunted, the world was falling down around us. Everyone was depending on us and we were running into dead ends at every turn. We were alone in the forest for months at a time with no news of the people we cared about and plenty of time to imagine the worst. It was something we both needed…to feel less scared, less alone. We did it to stay sane. I needed him, he needed me, but we did not love each other in the same way that two people should. We both knew that once everything was back to normal…if it ever did, that we would both pretend as if it had never happened."
She seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment, then suddenly took a deep breath and focused on the subject at hand.
"You will treat the child as your own." She started firmly.
"Yes," he replied, "but you will treat it as mine as well. I will not be forced to care for it as it is mine only to have you pull your status as its real mother anytime a questions comes up about how it is to be raised."
She thought for a moment.
"Yes, that's fair."
There was another moment of silence.
"From your behavior as a teacher…would you treat your own child like that?"
"No, no, of course not."
"Why do you want to do this? What is in this for you?"
"If this child is our only chance….it needs to be protected."
"What else?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"Not to you."
He remained silent, staring into the fire. This was his chance. She already expected him to be selfish, he could ask for something now.
"I wish to have a child of my own….in a few years, when this one is older."
"And you wish me to be the mother?"
"Yes."
"Then you are aware that the child could possibly end up an insufferable little know-it-all just like me."
"That's what I'm counting on," he said, allowing himself to smile for the first time.
He continued.
"We were both raised only children. Speaking for myself, it would have been nice to have someone, a sibling, to not have been so alone. Two children would be….a family."
They both stared into the fire, lost in their thoughts for a moment.
It was him who broke the silence.
"There are some things you should know."
She looked up at him, but he continued to gaze into the fire.
"I am a Death Eater. I will have duties that I must perform, times I must be gone. You cannot ask me not to. You cannot ask me to tell you everything. There are social events you will be asked to attend as well. My position will hopefully protect us both in the event that the Dark is victorious. I will have to get permission for the marriage from my master. I am reasonably confident that he will grant it. I will need to let him see my memory of the child being conceived."
He watched her nod out of the corner or his eye, giving him the strength to go on.
"It is a marriage of convenience, but it is still a marriage. I will be faithful and I expect the same from you."
Her eyes grew wide. She had not considered this.
"I will not force myself on you, but if you have needs, I ask that I be the man to fulfill them."
Something about his tone assured her that he would be able to fulfill those needs.
"I am a Gryfindor," she said to him as if to challenge him, "loyalty is what we do best."
He nodded and reached down into his shirt. He pulled out a small piece of metal that hung on a chain around his neck, wandlessly transfigured it into an engagement ring and slipped it on her finger.
They appeared in the hallway where everyone had been waiting. The crowd fell silent, no one wanting to ask the obvious question. Ron took a step forward towards Hermione who in response slid her hand into Severus'.
"This isn't what Harry would have wanted," Ron said coldly, "This isn't who he would have wanted to raise his child."
"Well then we're lucky he's not here to mess up the situation with his prejudices."
She nodded to him and they apparated, leaving a very confused Order behind in their wake.