3: The Safehouse
"Daddy."
He had never known that his whole world could be shattered with a single word.
It couldn't be true.
If there was ever anything that he had been sure of, it was that he was not a father. To have that basic belief shaken put everything else into question.
When was the last time he had even been with a woman?
It simply couldn't be true.
Could it?
He wanted to not believe it, but that little girl had made her declaration with an intense conviction that he couldn't deny.
He stood, still in shock and looked at the couple.
Both seemed to be searching for words, but neither made any move to deny the girl's assertion.
"What is going on here? Who is she?" His voice cracked with desperation.
"Severus, if you would just wait until Dumbledore gets here."
Dumbledore, of course. Who else could it be?
He knew if he wanted answers, he didn't have much time. He needed to find out who this girl was…and more importantly, who her mother was.
In a shocked rage, he ran the few steps to the porch of the farmhouse and slammed the door open, barely hearing the call of, "Severus, wait!" from behind him.
He tore through the house searching for a clue, for anything that would give him more information as to who this girl was….and who her mother was.
Who could her mother be?
He had no idea, although on some level he already knew.
What else would connect the pieces he had been trying to connect?
He told himself it was impossible.
He slammed open door after door like a madman. What was he looking for?
The kitchen, a sitting room, a pantry, a child's room….no it was a boy's room, then he opened another door. The room was obviously shared by three children, all girls. There were three small beds. The first was covered by a pink blanket and scattered dolls and stuffed animals. The second bed had a light purple blanket and was strewn with child's drawings of rainbows, of cats, of houses. The third bed had a dark blue blanket, tucked in crisply at the corners. He approached it slowly. On top of the neatly tucked blanket were three piles of books. They were picture books, traditional wizarding stories mixed with muggle ones he did not recognize. The girl couldn't be old enough to be able to read them, but already, she was fascinated. He knew this was her bed.
There was a small table next to the bed containing various belongings. He reached down and picked up the delicate silver picture frame. The letters "Catherine" were engraved along the side.
He looked at the pictures and all his fears came true.
It was a wizarding photograph. He was in it.
He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes. In the photograph he looked…happy. He wore an expression he had not even known himself to be capable of.
He was not the only one in the photograph.
In the picture, he held her in his arms, lovingly, protectively. Her mouth broke into a smile as he reached down and tenderly kissed her cheek through her brown curls. Hold, kiss, smile, hold, kiss, smile, hold, kiss, smile. He was unable to look away as the photograph looped over and over again.
How was it even possible?
Somehow this revelation made everything both easier and harder to understand.
What had she done? And how? He felt his curiousity turn into rage.
The bitch. Had he slept with her? He must have. She must have drugged him, stolen his seed, obliviated him, had his child and hidden it from him. Had her strange behavior over the last year merely been because she felt guilty? When he got his hands on her….
He needed to know…and he would do whatever it took to get the truth from her.
He slipped the photograph from its frame and held it tightly in his hand until the edge crinkled slightly.
Lifting his head, he looked out the dusty glass of window to see Dumbledore approaching in the distance, striding purposefully towards the farmhouse with a furious expression on his face.
Severus knew he didn't have much time.
A quiet pop and split-second later he was racing through the front door of Grimmauld place.
Dumbledore must have known, he must be a part of this. He had to find her before the old man found him. Severus' heart raced as he took the stairs two at a time. He knew where he would find her, he just had to get to her before the old man arrived.
He threw open the library door. There were others in the library, but all conversations ceased the moment he opened the door.
Potter and Lupin were in a conversation by the fireplace, they seemed frozen, staring at him, startled apparently by the violence and urgency of his dramatic entrance.
At the small table in the center of the room sat both Miss Weasely and the subject of his search.
She looked up from her book and he knew he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. It was not the look of a woman who had manipulated him and hidden a child from him. She didn't know.
With a cold feeling in his stomach, he realized that he wasn't the only one who had been obliviated.
He strode to where she had been sitting, focused on her as if nothing else even existed. She stood up quickly as he approached, uncertain at his strange behavior.
Grabbing her arm roughly, he hissed urgently in her ear.
"Do you feel sometimes like you're missing things…pieces of your past…memories…"
"Yes." She whispered.
"I need you to trust me." She had no reason to.
She looked deeply into his eyes.
"I do."
They could hear the front door slam open.
"Severus Snape," a voice bellowed from below, "don't you dare leave this house."
He wrapped his arms around her and instantly they were in a busy intersection in Muggle London. It was a shock to the senses coming from the dark, quiet library of Grimmauld Place, even more so for her who had not left the house since she returned from the hospital a year ago.
Severus hailed a cab and opened the door, motioning for her to get in.
She didn't move.
"Get in the cab."
"I….I…."
"You said you trusted me."
She glanced around her. The implication was clear. He hadn't asked her if she trusted him more than Dumbledore.
"Please."
He didn't know what made him say it, maybe desperation. It worked.
She stepped into the waiting vehicle and he slipped in behind her, glancing over his shoulder for the wizard he was expecting to appear any moment.
"Where to?" the driver asked casually.
Severus glanced at the young witch.
"Westminster Abbey," she blurted out.
He pulled out his wand and discretely cast a 'muffliato'.
"It was the first thing that popped into my head," she told him.
"It's fine. It'll buy us some time."
She glanced out the back window, presumably to see if they had been followed.
"I don't know if this is such a good idea. Dumbledore…"
"I have something that I need to tell you. I have a feeling that Dumbledore is trying to prevent that from happening. Something is obviously going on with you. I don't know what it is and I don't have any answers, but I have another piece of the puzzle. A piece you need to know about. Give me ten minutes. Then you can leave if you want to and go running back to Dumbledore."
The cab came to a halt and Hermione silently transfigured some pieces of parchment from her pocket into muggle currency and exited the vehicle.
They found a small, unused chapel within the church and ducked into it. Severus warded the door behind them and cast a distraction charm to prevent any visitors. When he turned back around, she had her back to him and was facing the small altar.
There was a small stained-glass window in the chapel and the light fell through it, casting pieces of red, purple, and blue against the pale stone. The room was silent but for some distant bells.
"I found some apparition coordinates. They took me to a safehouse. There was a girl there. I believe I am her father. I know this all sounds very unlikely, but I found this inside the house." He pulled out the photograph and handed it to her.
She studied it for a minute and then looked up.
"You think I am the girl's mother."
"Yes."
She handed him back the photograph.
"I'm sorry, but it's impossible."
"That's what I thought, but the picture…"
"No, you don't understand. It's just not possible."
There was a pained expression on her face.
"I can't…I can't have children." A single tear leaked out the corner of her eye.
He hadn't expected this.
"There is no way that I could have…."
She stopped mid sentence.
"Unless.."
"Unless?"
"Is she more than a year old?"
"Yes."
She sank to her knees on the stone floor.
"When Bellatrix tortured me….she cast a curse specifically….specifically to make me unable to bear children…..said she didn't want any more mudbloods running around, said she didn't want me dirtying up the bloodlines…." She trailed off.
So that was what these past months had been about.
"I had always accepted the possibility that I might die in all this. But I thought, I thought if I just survived that I could have a future…but after she cursed me…"
She closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
He knelt down on one knee, bringing him down to her level.
"I didn't even know that I wanted a child so badly until I couldn't have one."
She leaned forward, supporting herself on her arms, until she was almost on her hands and knees. He wasn't sure what to do, how to deal with this distraught woman.
"Her name is Catherine."
Hermione's head snapped up.
"What did you say?"
"Her name is Catherine. My…your….our daughter."
Her mouth dropped open.
"That's….that was my grandmother's name. It was what I was going to name…if I ever had a daughter….." She paused, "Oh god, this is real, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"We were…we were lovers?"
"Apparently."
She stood up slowly and he followed.
"How long has this been going on? Since I was in school?" She looked at him, scandalized.
"How am I supposed to know?"
"Would you have…?"
"No."
She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.
"With a student?"
"Absolutely not."
She looked unconvinced and he lashed out at her defensively.
"Do you make it a practice of sleeping with your professors? I was always mystified as to why your marks were so high in your other classes."
That earned him a quick slap in the face.
"How dare you."
She turned her back to him and stood silently for a few moments. Then finally she turned back around.
"Can I see that photograph again?"
He pulled it out of his robes and handed it to her. She took it and studied it for a few moments, obviously finding it as unbelievable as he had.
"That glint, what was that?" She handed him back the photograph and he watched it. Sure enough, when his arms wrapped around her, there was a quick glint of something gold in the corner of the photograph that he hadn't noticed before.
"Are we…were we…married?"
He hadn't even considered that possibility. It was enough for him even to imagine them as lovers.
He stood there helplessly as she took control of the situation in her bossy, organized way.
"We need more time, more information."
If Dumbledore was looking for them in London, he would find them soon enough.
"I have a cabin. It's unplottable. No one knows of it." He was a spy, he had to have a place that neither side knew about in case he was betrayed by either, betrayed by both. He had never brought anyone there.
"I'm going to the Ministry first."
He nodded. "I'll gather supplies while you're there."
"Can you get me a pensive? There are some thing I want to look at...some memories, some dreams."
"Yes."
"Meet me back here in an hour."
With that she was gone. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The idea that he would choose Hermione Granger as a lover seemed ridiculous, although not even as ridiculous as the idea that she would choose him. He wasn't sure what he was getting into, but he knew he couldn't stop until he uncovered the truth. There was a burning in his left arm and he pulled back the sleeve of his robes to see the dark mark writhing in an angry black. His preparations would have to wait.