Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
My thanks go to SouthernWitch_69 for another wonderful beta job.
MONTH TWO
"Hermione, are you sure you're alright? Do you want me to come over with some soup? It always makes me feel better."
Ron's freckled face was stuck squarely in the grate of Thorny Cottage. Today she was supposed to have visited them after work, but she'd felt too sick to go.
"Ron, I've never know a time when food didn't make you feel better. But I can't keep anything down. I'll be fine. I promise I'll come round soon."
She was hoping to get Ron out of the grate before Severus came out of his lab. Not that there was any serious animosity between them, they just had the ability to rub each other up the wrong way. Hermione didn't think she could deal with that on top of her protesting stomach. Luckily, Ron's head started to withdraw.
"Alright then. I'll let Harry know you're okay. We'll see you soon." The top of his red head disappeared into the emerald flames, and although relieved, she was a little sad to see him go.
In the past week, her morning sickness had gotten into full swing. She felt sick morning, noon and evening. The only time she seemed to be comfortably able to eat was after midnight, which left her feeling tired as well as hungry.
So, come 2am, Hermione could be found sitting at the kitchen table tucking into a large ham sandwich. She felt Severus' presence at the doorway although he never announced that he was there. Although he had retained the art of moving silently, over the past month she had come to be able to sense where he was in the house. Right now she could feel him advancing to her left shoulder to peer at her plateful of food.
His voice gently rolled next to her ear. "This is the third night you've eaten at this time. Am I correct in assuming that you have morning sickness?"
She watched him walk around the table to sit opposite her. Though she was sure he had been awake at this time every night, he had always remained in his bedroom. This was the first time he had come down to see her during her 'midnight' food raids. He hadn't really intended his question as one that required an answer, but she replied anyway.
"This is the only time I can eat food and keep it down. Apparently, it'll only last another couple of months, and then I'll be eating twice as much." She raised the sandwich to her mouth and took a huge bite, flashing a wry grin up at Severus as she did so.
Since she had moved in, they had created a tentative living pattern. They didn't ever interact too much, and both stoutly maintained to themselves, and to each other, that this was what they both wanted, that they both still 'needed' the space that they were accustomed to. However, Severus made sure to inquire after her health every day, although usually she would just answer with a cheery "fine"; she didn't think he needed to know the intimate details of her bodily functions just yet.
They had, unexpectedly, found a small amount of comfort from co-habiting. Sometimes, whilst they would be using the kitchen at the same time, she would share a funny incident from her day, and he would respond with one of his typical dry remarks, usually scathingly criticising the 'incompetent Ministry buffoons' she worked with. Occasionally, he would share some details of the potions he was working on and would quietly listen as she enthusiastically expanded on the topic.
These small exchanges seemed to momentarily appease Hermione's thirst for connection. Any intelligent conversation, regardless of subject, was immensely stimulating to her. It wasn't until he'd leave the room that she'd realise that they had still only spoken for a maximum of five minutes. She'd gradually begun to recognise that Severus was never really going to fill that void in her life that she was so desperately seeking to fill, yet she still looked forward to the next discussion, hoping it would last just a little longer than the one before.
So, with Severus seated opposite her as she devoured her sandwich, she groped around for any topic that would keep him there longer, but he was already talking.
"Your pregnancy does seem to be running by the books, so far. That's what I'd hoped."
Hermione blinked, her sandwich halting on its ascent to her mouth. She didn't really know what to say. She always felt a little flushed when she knew Severus had been pondering on her and the baby, for whatever the reason. He was looking at her again now, in that way which made her think he was taking in every minute detail of her being and storing the information, as though she was one of his experiments.
"You might want to think about telling your friends the news before it becomes too obvious to conceal." He focused directly on her stomach again, and her eyes self-consciously followed his, although she knew she wasn't showing yet. "It won't be long now," she heard him mumble absently. Hermione whipped her head up in time to spot a glimmer of what looked like satisfaction in his eyes, but it was gone again by the time he lifted his head.
While Severus was always curious about the progression of the pregnancy, tonight he was more fixated than normal. It was the way he wouldn't cease looking her over, as though he was expecting some drastic change to occur right before his eyes.
"I'm going to tell Harry and Ron soon, I've decided," she tentatively ventured to the dark-haired man sitting opposite her.
She watched one eyebrow effortlessly ease its way up her companion's forehead. He obviously had read the slight hesitation in that declaration, and the look he was giving her clearly said, 'I'll believe that when I see it'.
"I will," she persevered. "I'm just waiting for things to quieten down a bit, they're both so busy, and I wouldn't want to tell them at the wrong time because that wouldn't help anything…"
She petered off as the eyebrow stayed resolutely in place, idly mocking her insistence. She turned back to her sandwich, knowing she needed to finish it off before she went back to bed. She expected Severus to return back to his room, now that he had satisfied his curiosity, but he remained, watching her eat her way through the rest of her sandwich.
They didn't speak again whilst she ate. She looked firmly at her plate, only occasionally raising her eyes to find him still staring at her in that disconcerting way. As she was finishing the last bite, he rose from the table. Hermione felt slight relief until she saw that he had only risen to bring the kettle to boil.
She felt that juvenile urge to roll her eyes again. Of course Severus Snape would know that she drank herbal tea every night. With all his constant observations of her, she would be surprised if there was anything he didn't know. She watched him pull exactly the right box from the cupboard and begin to prepare the cup for her. Seconds later the brew was pushed across the table towards her.
She lifted the cup to her nose, taking a moment to savour the comforting fragrance. It was too hot to drink, and she would take it with her to her room, as she had done every night. But she found herself reluctant to leave the kitchen. Inquisitive staring aside, it was these small moments that she savoured. She told herself that she would wait just another minute or two and enjoy another fleeting moment of companionship. She remembered a topic she had been meaning to bring up with him; now seemed as good a time as any.
"Now that the weather is getting warmer, I wondered whether you would accept some help in the garden. I was rather good at Herbology at school." She twigged a little too late that reminding him of the 'know-it-all' he had mocked at Hogwarts probably wasn't the best way to get his approval on the matter. "And," she added swiftly, "I would enjoy it a lot." She smiled hopefully at him, trying to appear as if the answer wasn't of too much importance to her.
His mouth opened to speak, but he seemed to bite down on whatever he was going to say. He looked intently over her expression, the crease between his eyebrows deepening as he evaluated his decision.
"You may assist me," he began, "but," he added swiftly, "there are a couple of the plants that I would rather you did not come into contact with, for the baby's safety of course."
She hadn't thought about whether any of the plants would be dangerous during pregnancy. She nodded rapidly and gave him a satisfied smile.
Her next words were swallowed up in a jaw-splitting yawn. She had forgotten how late it was. If she had any chance of getting to work in the morning, she needed to go and get some sleep.
Snape had taken her yawn as his cue to rise from the table and begin to make his exit to the door. She moved to follow him, amazed that he looked as alert and awake as any other time of the day. She was definitely waning now, her feet dragging along the floor, the cup of tea tilting ever-so slightly.
As she reached the door to her bedroom, her hand lingered on the doorknob. She watched Severus reach his room at the end of the small landing. As he opened his door, he glanced her way. She flustered, embarrassed at being caught. She squeaked a hasty "goodnight" and dove through her door. The last thing she saw as she disappeared past the doorframe was the twitch of Severus' mouth.
Once she was inside the safety of her room, she mentally berated herself. She had just acted with all the sophistication of a teenage girl. She had no reason to blush for simply looking his way. She was carrying his child for goodness sake. She knew he had spotted her embarrassment too. The twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth was, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of a highly amused grin.
Severus closed his door with soft click. He paused a moment at the door replaying Hermione's exit from the landing. He hadn't seen her get embarrassed in a long time. It was always entertaining to see her ruffled. Her cheeks had the ability to burn a bright red, the colour extending down her neck the more embarrassed she got.
He had just been turning to wish her a restful night's sleep, and Merlin help her, the girl looked as if she could use one, when she had flushed that crimson shade and positively leapt through her door.
He was familiar with most of her facial expressions now. He spent anytime they were in the same room observing her, watching for any signs of how the pregnancy was progressing. He waited with trepidation for the hormones to affect her disposition, but barring their encounter in her study on her very first day, he had yet to see the unpredictable behaviour that they described in the books. He had begun to suspect that that episode had had nothing to do with hormones, but as the next likely suspect was himself, he hadn't delved much further into it.
Due to his observations, he had begun to notice a wealth of things about Hermione. Such as the meticulous way she cared for her body and the child she carried: his child. The way she listened intently to any information he would divulge about his current experiments. He had even found research notes on her desk in her tiny study, exploring one of the elements of his potions that they had discussed the previous evening.
Or the way she brought home the unfinished work of colleagues he considered unworthy of even working beside her. Every time she told him a story of how one of the incompetent fools in her department had screwed up once again, he felt compelled to voice his distain. It bothered him to see intellect go to waste. It was another thing that had frustrated him about teaching: even the most brilliant teenage minds were often more focused on teenage pursuits and dramas than on their studies. Only a few were an exception to the rule, dedicating themselves to academia. It hadn't made him like the brats much more, but he had at least respected their dedication and thirst for knowledge.
This thought brought him right back to the woman in the next room. Pregnant, beleaguered by more work than she could comfortably manage, and still she wished to learn about the rare plants he grew at the side of the garden. Her eyes had practically begged to be allowed to work with him on the small patch. He had almost said no, worried that she would start overexerting herself, but he had relented, as it was always good to know someone else could oversee his investment, if he ever had the need. But did watching the resulting smile on her face have to feel so… rewarding?
She was smiling more lately, he had noticed. Not that she was beaming away all the time; she just didn't have that constant air of stoically endured boredom, prevalent over the last couple of years, that had seemed to crush all the fight and spirit from her. She seemed close to, dare he think it, happy, which satisfied him more than he had would have thought. The only thing he had predicted being concerned with was the physical wellbeing of the 'carrier' of his child. He didn't think he would be concerned with her mental wellbeing, let alone her emotional wellbeing, and as for the word 'carrier', he just couldn't reconcile the word to his image of Hermione Granger.
The problem was, he couldn't quite figure out what his image of Hermione Granger was any longer. If someone had asked him 10 years ago, he would have immediately said that she was a brownnosing know-it-all, who was riding on the fame of the Boy-Who-Lived. By the end of the war, he at least could appreciate what she had contributed to the final effort. In the years since, she had become more of a wallflower, fading into the background: the stalwart dogs-body of the Order.
She had, until recently, remained a mixture of all the images from over the years. He was now surprised to find a sensible woman where the bushy-haired student had once been. It irked him that this had escaped his notice. He prided himself on his observations. At least a few things had stayed the same. Her hair was still as wild as ever, constantly getting in her way. She was forever brushing it out of her face, and it irritated him no end. And she still showed her eagerness with so much frantic nodding he was surprised her head hadn't fallen off yet.
The only thing he wished was that she would divulge more information about how the pregnancy was affecting her body. He was intensely curious, but she never gave away anything other than she was 'fine'. 'Fine' just didn't cut it in Severus' opinion. With the vast array of descriptive words at her disposal, 'fine' came somewhere just vaguely above 'nice'. Severus wanted details. This was the development of his child; he wanted to compare and analyse, prove that his child was superior in all ways to every other child ever born. And he couldn't do that with 'fine'.
He'd get details one way or the other. He'd start asking more questions, and either she would tell him or he would just have to pluck those answers right out of her head.
Hermione's work day was almost at an end. She was watching the clock tick slowly away, more than ready to escape home to the comfort of Thorny Cottage.
A paper aeroplane flew into the room, making two circles above her head before it neatly landed itself in the centre of her desk. Hermione opened it, hoping it wasn't going to be anything that would keep her here too long.
It was from Harry, which was unusual enough; Harry almost never visited his office at the Ministry. He preferred to do any paperwork he had at Grimmauld Place. But the words were clear. It simply read: "I need to talk to you ASAP. I'm in my office now."
If it was something to do with work, he would have sent the relevant paperwork. If it was something inconsequential, he would have Flooed her later from home. No, he meant business, and had purposefully contacted her when she wasn't near Severus or Ron. Now she really was worried.
She left a quick note for Roger, saying that Harry had called her to see him and after that she was heading home for the day. With that she gathered her belongings and began to walk to meet her friend.
Harry was sitting behind his desk, arms folded, looking every inch the hero and leader he had become. Hermione stuck a smile on her face and came to stop behind the empty chair opposite him. She felt like she had been called to the headmaster's study.
"Harry? Is everything okay?"
He took a deep breath and looked her deep in the eye. She knew then she was done for. He was clearly very angry with her about something, and there was only one thing in her life at the moment that would cause him to be this angry; only one thing he didn't already know.
"I guess I should be asking you how you're feeling, Hermione. Still feeling sick?"
She nodded, too afraid to say anymore. She didn't want him to play with her. She needed to get it out in the open. It was double standards, she knew, since she had hidden this for two months. She deserved every piece of anger and hurt he could wish to throw her way.
Harry slowly rose from his chair and came around the table towards her. He stood in front of her, her best friend, as close to a brother as she could ever have.
"Hermione, I didn't understand why you would move to Snape's, but I'm not as stupid as you think. A 'project' for nine months and now you're feeling sick? Tell me I've got it wrong; tell me I am being stupid." His eyes pleaded with her to tell him the truth.
When she still said nothing, he urgently grabbed her hands and shook them, shaking her out of her shock.
"Hermione! Are you pregnant?"
"Yes," she whispered, "I am. I was going to tell you really soon, I honestly was."
His eyes had immediately sought her stomach, obviously looking for evidence of her impending motherhood. When he found none, his eyes returned to hers, weighing up whether to ask the question she knew he had to ask before he would be satisfied; the question she couldn't answer truthfully.
"And the baby," he seemed to pause for a second, his head slightly shaking in disbelief, before he resumed, "is it Snape's?"
This was why she had wanted to leave telling them a little longer. She tried to mentally steel herself, but as the lie left her lips, it felt like it took a tiny part of her soul with it.
"No," she said. By the contract, she couldn't have said 'yes', but in a sudden need to have her best friend have an inkling of what was going on she added, "I can't talk about it."
Harry was right. He was not stupid. He understood immediately what she was trying to say, and his face dropped. He released her hands and moved away from her to lean back on his desk. Hermione felt awful; he looked so betrayed.
"I guess you can't tell me why either," he said, looking thoroughly defeated.
Hermione just shook her head in reply. Her eyes began to prickle and her vision began to haze.
She felt sicker than all her morning sickness combined at the latest repercussions of her decision. She had never needed to question the strength of their friendship; it was stronger than blood, but maybe she had overstepped the boundaries this time. Keeping something this important from him was not how their friendship worked and she had to pray that he would forgive her.
"I'm sorry," she offered. Tears were brimming on the edge of her lashes, threatening to spill over any moment.
Harry looked up and caught her expression. He sighed once and moved to stand in front of her again. He reached forward and enveloped her in a giant hug. Hermione's water reserves broke, and she found herself clinging to his robes whilst tears streamed down her face.
Harry 'shushed' her and gathered her closer. He held her until her gentle sobs began to ease, and then he pulled back to look at her face.
Hermione couldn't explain it. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Harry knew and he still cared. Ron would go crazy for a little while when he was told, but with Harry's support she knew it wouldn't be a problem. She hadn't realised how much stress she had been under by keeping such a huge decision from them. She vowed she would never do it again. After all they had been through, how could she have doubted how they would have handled it?
Harry set about wiping away her tears and straightening her robes.
"Are you happy?" he asked. His tone said everything he wouldn't say in words. He had accepted it and all he cared about now was her.
Hermione thought about this. She wouldn't say she was unhappy. Life wasn't exactly as she would have it, but she wasn't in a position to complain. She settled for giving him an almost-answer.
"I'm doing the right thing. I'm more… fulfilled." She gave him a watery smile. "I'm better now that you know. That's what has worried me the most."
He smiled right back at her and looped his arm around her shoulders as he guided her towards the door.
"Well," he started, "we haven't told Ron yet."
Severus was pacing the floor inside the living room. Hermione was usually back by now. Even on the days when she had visited the Dastardly Duo, she had still returned before this hour. He glanced back to the fireplace, as he had done every few minutes for the past hour, but there was no change in the gently crackling flames.
He knew she was an adult and perfectly capable of looking after herself, but what if she had gotten too sick to travel? Or what if she had been kidnapped by one of the remaining Death Eaters? Or what if she was out with someone from work? If she was in the care of one of those buffoons, then anything could happen to her and the baby.
Severus fidgeted, torn between the urge to go and find her and the urge to wait for her here, where she would have a piece of his mind when she returned.
As he paced towards the window again, the flames burst into life behind his back. He spun around to greet Hermione with the tongue-lashing he had been steadily preparing over the past hour. The expression on her face had the first scathing word dying on his lips. He took a moment to survey the damage.
She had been crying, that much was obvious. What he couldn't place was the emotion behind her eyes. It wasn't despair, yet it wasn't joy. She looked like she had just fought a long hard battle, but about what he didn't know. It may have been work-related. He mentally shook his head. Severus had never seen evidence that she was this emotionally attached to her job. That left him with the conclusion that this had to be personal, which once again left a high probability that he had responsibility for her distress.
He took a step towards her, and she started at his sudden movement. It appeared she hadn't seen him upon exiting the grate, and he realised it had entirely escaped his notice that the room had fallen into darkness while he had waited.
He watched her stare at him for a second, resolution and pride clear on her face. She nodded to him once in acknowledgement before turning away and heading for the hallway.
What?! He wanted to shout and demand her return. He needed answers to this and he could wait no longer. She had already disappeared into the kitchen and he swiftly followed, trapping her before she had a chance to disappear up the stairs.
She was carrying her sandwich and blossom-scented tea, which apparently she didn't wish to consume downstairs tonight.
"Miss Granger, I would like some explanation as to your appearance."
He thought it seemed a reasonable request on his part. However, she managed to let out a sigh that let him know that that was the very last thing she wished to do. She gathered her thoughts; pain, relief and despondence played across her face in equal measure, and he was even more intrigued than before.
She didn't look him in the eye as she muttered: "It was a long day, and I told Ron and Harry that I'm pregnant, so I'm just going to go to bed now."
She moved to step past him, but he blocked her way. How could this meeting have caused such contradictory emotions in her? What had happened? He swore he wouldn't use it against her, but he had to know. It would eat him up if he didn't. He felt the magic flow down his arm as the non-verbal spell left his consciousness.
He was bombarded with an assortment of images and scenes, all fighting for dominance in the forefront of her mind. No wonder she looked so frazzled on the outside; her head was a mess. He had to fight through all of the memories to piece together what had happened to her this afternoon.
Weasley's face, blanched white… the Boy-Who-Lived-Twice holding her tight… shouts reverberating across the kitchen at Grimmauld Place… knocks coming from the other side of a bathroom door… the measly contents of her stomach disappearing into the bowl…
Most of the memories were hazy, seen through the tears she still showed the evidence of now. He felt a force pushing against his intrusion, and he suddenly found himself staring back into the red, blotchy face of Hermione.
"I hope you're happy with what you found. Now if you're quite finished, I'd like to go to bed."
She slipped past him, quickly moving beyond his reach, and didn't stop until her door slammed shut.
Severus stood and listened to the floorboards creak as Hermione moved around in the room above him. After a few minutes, the creaking stopped, and the gentle spring of the mattress was the last thing he heard before silence encased the house.
He recognized the emotion at the front of his mind. It was one he hadn't felt in over twenty-five years, when hiding in a dingy hallway he'd heard a prophecy that would drastically change the course of his life. It was protection for a mother in danger, clear and strong, except this time the child in question was his, not the child that should have been his. This time he'd get it right. She would be safe and so would the child.
