Chapter 3
When she made it to Hogsmeade House Lucy was greeted by everyone preparing for dinner in the backyard.
"So, you ready for Hogwarts to start back up?" Charlie asked as they all sat at the table.
"Yes," she smiled, "I like my students, Charlie. Most of them anyway and it's good to see my colleagues again too. Dinah and Severus showed up today."
"I never said you didn't," he insisted. "Most kids don't want to go back to school. I figured teachers were the same way. Then again, you always were the strange one who enjoyed going back."
"I can only speak for myself Char; others might not look forward to it."
"I'm sure Snape looks forward to coming back. Gives him a chance to take more points from Gryffindor," Bill remarked.
"Careful, Bill," Sirius warned, "Dinah might slap you if she hears you talking like that."
Lucy knew he was teasing but she wasn't sure the others did. Of course, Bill only had a vague knowledge of who Dinah even was, so Sirius's warning probably made little sense to him.
"Dinah?" he asked.
"Professor Samson. She's the new Muggle Studies professor," Ginny piped up, "and she's the fourth bridesmaid."
"She also happens to be married to Professor Snape," Molly informed the table, or those that didn't know that yet anyway.
"You're kidding?" was all Bill said.
Fleur stopped feeding Victoire long enough to look over at Lucy, "Someone married that 'orrible man? I remember heem from when I waz at 'ogwarts. 'E waz not nice."
Lucy laughed, "Well, he still has his moments but he's not that bad really. He can even be quite nice. You might be interested to know we're hosting the Triwizard Tournament this year."
"Really?" George asked, "Figures. We're finally old enough to compete and we're not there to put our names in."
"Yes, really," she confirmed.
Later on, as Lucy lay in her Hogwarts bed, she thought about how nice the dinner had been. No worry, no tension, no throwing up. She was glad she'd gotten to see everyone before she started work for the year and also for one of the last times they'd see her as a single woman.
Looking around the Great Hall, Lucy noted how different the scene this year looked compared to last. The Headmistress's chair was empty. Minerva having gone to gather the new first years and escort them in to be sorted. At the other end of the table, Mr. and Mrs. Snape sat together, rather than two seats apart like the year before. Their hands were not visible above the table and Lucy thought they might be holding hands, taking care to be circumspect around the students of course.
The students had also not caught their new Literature professor snogging out by the front entrance to the grounds. Lucy squirmed in her seat a bit. Though it was better that the students hadn't seen that, she was wishing she'd been able to indulge in a good snogging recently. Her hormones seemed to have shifted from emotional to…turned on. She sighed, there was nothing for it though. She was just going to have to power through. Sirius would not be coming tonight or this whole week, until Friday that was.
Soon enough the doors to the Great Hall opened and behind Minerva marched in some of the tiniest first years she'd ever seen. If they kept getting smaller every year soon they'd be shorter than Professor Flitwick.
Minerva quickly explained the sorting procedure to the terrified-looking eleven-year-olds before calling up the first girl, Ava Carter, and placing the hat on her head. It sat there for a few minutes before pronouncing her a Ravenclaw. Lucy clapped for the girl along with the rest of the room. The first student of the year and she'd been sorted into Lucy's former House. It made her proud.
About halfway through the sorting, Minerva called up a Crispin Lympsham. Lucy wondered if he was any relation to one of her favorite students Derwent, a Slytherin boy who would be in his seventh year. The young Crispin was sorted into Hufflepuff before she could think much about it though and the sorting continued. It finally ended with Corvus Zarkoff being placed into Slytherin.
It was at this point Lucy realized another thing that was different from last year. The Potions professor, Slughorn, was not sitting next to her chewing her ear off. Instead, there sat Eugene Wilkins, Severus's new arch-nemesis. Slughorn seemed to be farther down the table sitting next to Professor Trelawney.
"Hello, Eugene," she said, trying to be polite. Really he wasn't as bad as Severus thought he was. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were sitting there."
"It's all right," he smiled, "I was watching the sorting. It's different than the way it was done at Durmstrang."
"Mm," Lucy murmured politely as they both turned to watch Minerva stand in front of her Headmistress's chair to give the traditional speech before the feast.
"Welcome students, old and new, to another year at Hogwarts," she started, sounding a little like Dumbledore. "We had another…interesting year last year, and this one shall possibly prove to be nearly as interesting."
Lucy sincerely hoped it wasn't as interesting, especially for Minerva's and the school's sake. She didn't think they could handle another Head of the school dying for the third year in a row.
"We have a number of exciting announcements to make this year. Some of you may have noticed the empty chair sitting on Professor Ketteridge's left. Some of you may also know that our professor is planning on getting married. What you are not aware of is that chair is for Professor Ketteridge's fiancé to use after their marriage and they will be marrying this Saturday on the grounds of Hogwarts. They wish to hold the reception for their friends and family here in our very own Great Hall. They've also expressed a desire for all of you to be allowed to attend the reception."
Lucy blushed as the students started chattering amongst themselves, some of them pointing her out to others who were either first years or hadn't taken her class.
"Quiet down, quiet down," Minerva said, motioning with her hands. "It is a very kind gesture made by both Professor Ketteridge and Mr. Black and I will expect all of you to be on your best behavior.
"The second piece of news is that Quidditch has been canceled this year. Now, I know you're all disappointed," she said, as the students went from chattering to groaning and complaining. "We've canceled Quidditch so that we might be able to put our energies into once again hosting the Triwizard Tournament. We will again be joined by the schools of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons for the Tournament. Only those who have reached the age of seventeen will be allowed to enter your names into the Goblet of Fire. I will explain how this will work more as we get closer to the arrival of our guests, but for now…enjoy you're supper," she clapped her hands and before them appeared a plethora of foods.
Lucy quickly grabbed more than she probably should have, but she was hungry for once and she was going to take advantage of it. A combination of Severus's anti-nausea potion and nearing the end of her first trimester seemed to be letting her desire for food increase…for other things too, but there was nothing she could do about that in the middle of the Welcoming Feast.
She looked over to where her two friends were sitting and watched as Dinah pushed away the large amount of food she'd piled onto her plate. Severus, predictably, pulled out a vile of the appetite stimulate he'd made for his wife over the summer. Dinah pulled a face and Lucy remembered she'd complained about the taste of the potion, but she quietly took it, gulping down her glass of water afterwards to wash away the taste.
"What did Severus just give to Dinah?" Eugene asked, being more observant then he probably should be given his history with the other man.
"Um, I'm sure it was nothing," Lucy said. Both couples had agreed not to go about telling people about the pregnancies until later on, and especially not until Lucy had told her family. She didn't know how much of the staff was aware of her and Dinah's conditions, but she wasn't going to say anything until she knew who had been told and who hadn't.
"He shouldn't be giving his wife potions without checking with Madam Pomfrey first. Surely he knows that. I doubt he'd want to take risks with Dinah's well-being."
Lucy sighed, "Eugene, I've never had a problem with you, but do you really think that's the right tree to be barking up?"
"Ah, right," the other man said, a tad sheepish, "probably not."
"Oh, come now. You know very well Severus is quite skilled with potions! And you should know he would never do anything to harm Dinah."
"I know. He is quite skilled. I wouldn't have asked him to help me in the lab from time to time otherwise. It's only that he seemed so secretive about giving her the potion."
"Perhaps he doesn't want every move of his criticized," Lucy said, growing a tad irritated with the man.
"Very true," Eugene conceded. "I'm sorry. I seem to be ruining your meal. You've hardly made a dent in your plate."
"Oh," she looked down at her plate to see Eugene was right. "I guess I'm not as hungry as I thought I was." And she wasn't either. The food seemed less appealing than it had when it first appeared and she worried for a brief second that she was catching Dinah's food aversions, but it passed as she continued to pick at her food, eventually finishing her dinner and retiring to her rooms.
Monday morning Lucy once again was starting the year with her fifth year class. Except rather than complete unknowns to her, the students were her former fourth years. Verity Dunbar, a Ravenclaw, and Delia Sparrow, a Hufflepuff, came up to Lucy's desk just before the start of class and immediately started asking questions.
Laughing a little, Lucy sent them back to their seats, saying, "Once everyone's seated I'll be happy to answer everyone's questions. We will be doing some actual school work today though so don't even try to keep asking unrelated questions to get out of work."
Delia raced back to her seat and raised her hand. She waited patiently until Lucy had called on her and then her words rushed out, "Do we really get to come to your reception? Like we get to dance and take dates and dress up and eat cake and stuff?"
"Yes, of course. To all of it," Lucy smiled. "I don't want any of you to feel uncomfortable though, so you don't have to come if you don't want to, nor do we expect all of you to wear dress robes. Just…dress nice and be yourselves."
"Will you take time off for a honeymoon?" another girl asked.
"No, we've decided to put that off until a later date."
She'd barely finished answering the first question when another student asked, "Is Mr. Black going to be living here?" and on it's heels came, "Will we have to start calling you Professor Black next week?"
Lucy smiled at the thought of him living at the school with her and also of going by the title of 'Professor Black', as strange as it sounded. "Yes, he will be living here and yes, I will also be going by Professor Black. Though not to worry; I won't be terribly strict about it. It's going to take me time to get used to having that name myself. I don't expect you to take to it immediately either."
"What are you…"
"That's enough questions for now, I think," Lucy said, somewhat amazed when they quieted. It was still a mystery to her, the way most of the students simply accepted her authority. Surely they wouldn't if they knew about her stay in St. Mungo's, but they didn't and, more importantly, neither did their parents. "This year I have four books for us to read. Two of them we're going to read only sections of so we have the proper background for the stories we'll be reading. One novel is about Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, and what England might have been like had his fight for the crown been successful. Would the Statute of Secrecy still be in effect for instance? The other tale is about a wizard in the same time period, but it sticks more to the actual historical events rather than what might have been."
By the time she was halfway through her second class of the day (her seventh years, now containing two of her favorite students, Derwent and Agrona), Lucy was hearing fewer questions about her wedding reception and more and more whispers about a certain Professor Snape, formerly Samson.
She told herself she'd make it a point to see Dinah in the next couple of days to see how the students were taking it…and to tell her how they were reacting when she wasn't around. Maybe she'd see about dinner on Wednesday since Lucy wouldn't be engaging in other, more pleasurable, activities anyway.
"Severus?" Dinah, sitting up in bed Tuesday morning, leaned over to stroke the hair of her pillow-clutching husband; "Going to get up for class?"
"No!" he snapped, his eyes still closed stubbornly as he clutched the pillow tighter and stuffed his face into it, growling; "I'm never going to class again. Infernal students! I take points from them but they don't seem to care. I take more points, every time, yet they continue to raise their hands and ask ridiculous questions like did I really marry you? Is the ring real? Or is this some kind of joke? Apparently they think I'm more likely to joke than I am to marry you? How long have they been at this school and known me? The first years I can maybe see but everyone else? Rotten, infernal, stupid children. Useless and incompetent and asking stupid questions all day. Never going to class… staying here…"
He continued to mutter incomprehensibly into the pillow and Dinah just smiled, giving up on him as she slipped out of bed. He was normally grouchy in the mornings anyway, and this publicity they were getting from the students over their marriage had him especially out-of-sorts. He didn't like anything that disrupted the sanctity of his classroom, but she was confident he'd drag himself out of bed eventually.
She headed into the shower to get ready, thinking back on yesterday. Yes, the word of their marriage had been all over school quite a bit sooner than her prediction of dinnertime. It was more just lots of whispering rumors and general bafflement. She had gotten the same 'infernal' questions in class, of course, or at least similar ones, but she was a lot more capable of handling them than Severus. Though, granted, they had gotten annoying after a while when they began to interrupt class.
Finishing up her shower, hair, and make-up, she noted that her husband was still in bed as she walked back through the bedroom, but seemed to be stirring a little bit, though he looked no less grouchy. She didn't bother smiling at him, though, since his eyes were still shut. If he didn't hurry he was going to miss breakfast.
Yesterday had been a 'not-hungry' day with regards to her appetite, but today she felt good as she entered the dining area of the main room to see that today's breakfast was kippers and porridge. Lucy was probably not happy about such a food selection, but Dinah definitely was. She settled down at the table, finished her meal, and then headed over to the coffee table and the green couch to peruse this morning's edition of the Daily Prophet in the twenty minutes or so she had before classes started.
Lifting it up, she was immediately greeted by giant letters plastered across the very top of the front page reading: 'Professors Snape and Samson Marry'.
At first Dinah could do nothing but stare. How? How was it possible that the press got word of their marriage this quickly? Students must have been owling their parents the minute the rumors hit the halls. And making the very top of the front page? The major headline? She was shocked people cared that much. Should they have waited longer to make the announcement?
She only grew more annoyed when she noticed the author of the article: Rita Skeeter. Frowning, she leaned back in the couch and began to skim the article, muttering the words out loud to herself as she read; "'In a shocking turn of events beginning this fall's Hogwarts school year, the infamous Professors Snape and Samson announced that they were now a wedded couple. Professor Samson made many headlines last year with her still highly suspicious parseltongue abilities' – Aaaargh!" Dinah shouted, not finishing the sentence as her pregnancy hormones got the best of her and she slammed the paper down onto the coffee table and stood to glare and point at it; "Beetle woman, I'm going to destroy you!"
"What are you talking about?" a deep baritone muttered from behind her as Severus's dark robes entered her peripheral vision and her husband came to stand next to her; "Is my wife having another one of her random Slytherin-style moments of violence? Should I be concerned that you're going to hit somebody?"
"This is nothing to joke about!" she told her slightly-smirking husband.
"Oh? Well, who is it we are destroying then?"
"Mm!" she made an indignant noise and jabbed her finger at the headline.
He leaned over and lifted up the paper, frowning; "Ah. I see the students were more infernal yesterday than even I thought."
"Is that all you can say? That woman is writing lies about our personal life again!"
"I know you're frustrated, but you might have missed this part here," he pointed to the edge of the paper; "An opinion column by Alder which looks to be tempering Rita's sensationalism."
"Ah, Alder!" Dinah exclaimed, feeling a rush of sweet relief as she snatched the Prophet from her husband to take a look at the article. It basically said that from his experiences with them, Alder thought that they were good people, perfectly harmless, and there was no need for all of this hype, and they deserved to lead a normal, quiet life together if that was what made them happy. The kindness in the words of their reporter ally made her smile; "He's a life-saver!" Now she frowned, "Though I still don't see how all of a sudden Rita's got the big headlines again and Alder is reduced to this tiny little opinion column. Last year he seemed to be taking her over a little bit but they seem to have regressed."
He smirked, taking the paper back from her, "Yes, well, I suppose Rita's sensationalism gets too much publicity for the paper to ignore for extended periods. They are, after all, interested primarily in sales and in money. The infernal Skeeter woman's work sells."
Dinah scowled, "I don't see why. She isn't even a real writer. Uses that ridiculous 'Quick Quotes Quill'. That's the same as cheating, in my opinion. Rotten bug!"
Now her husband was smiling slightly, "Well, are you going to hex her or should I?"
She heaved a sigh. "Oh, you do it. You're better at that sort of thing than I am anyway."
Severus chucked, "I thought so." He set down the paper, "Well, shall we go to class then?"
"Oh, we're going to class now?" she teased, batting her eyelashes at him.
It was his turn to heave an annoyed sigh, "Yes, I am going to class." He frowned, "After all, it's not as though the published article is going to change the students' reactions from yesterday. Not much anyway, I hope."
"I hope," she agreed.
"Did you eat breakfast?"
"I did."
"Really? Enough of it?"
She laughed, "I ate a reasonable amount."
Her husband frowned, "I no longer know what 'reasonable amount' means to you at any given moment, Dinah. Elaborate please."
She sighed, but felt nothing but affection towards her husband for the fact that he worried so much about her eating habits during pregnancy. "I ate the amount of food I would normally eat when I was not pregnant or at least ninety-five percent of that much. Better?"
"Yes, I suppose. Good. I suppose I should have something myself before I go and face the crowd of dunderheads again."
"Probably," she smiled, leaning up to place a brief kiss on his lips. "I think I'm going to head off. Hopefully the press attention passes quickly."
"Yes," he smiled and squeezed her hand, "I'm sure it will. After all, what more can they possibly say about us that they didn't already last year?"
She nodded. "Nothing I can think of at all."
