What? Another chapter update in one day? Madness! But yeah, it's true. Of course, this chapter is the last I actually have written so far. So the next chapter might be a little while in coming. But don't worry, I'm gonna finish the story, I promise!

Disclaimer: You know the drill: Not mine, not mine, not mine.

Chapter Ten

~What?~

The wolves and vampires all shot to their feet, reacting to the threat, and what followed was pure chaos. Unlike two days before, however, no one was launched through walls or floors; Esme's wonderfully appointed home remained intact. This time, everyone who attempted to attack the newcomers was rendered immobile.

When all the wolves and the vampires who'd moved to attack were immobilized, Hermione was able to see what was going on more clearly. "Ginny?" she asked incredulously. "Harry? Ron? Draco?" she added as she looked and saw who had accompanied the red-head.

"Yeah, and Mum, half my brothers, Lupin, Tonks, Luna, and McGonagall in a moment," Ginny Potter answered. She and three young men still held up their wands; all four of them had cast spells to immobilize the wolves and the vampires.

"No worries, Severus, Granger," Draco said lazily, his own wand still held aloft, "we've immobilized all the vampires and oversized dogs for you."

Hermione and Severus rolled their eyes at the same time; the synchronicity of their actions seemed to surprise Draco, who looked badly disconcerted by the fact that Hermione Granger and Severus Snape had been thinking similarly enough that they'd just had the same reaction.

"Yes, Draco, and believe it or not, I'd appreciate it if you could let them go," Hermione told him drily. "Severus and I rather need them to trust us."

The other witch and the three young wizards all blinked at her in disbelief.

"But, 'Mione -" Ron started, but she huffed in annoyance at him, interrupting him.

"How many times have I told you not to call me that, Ron?" she demanded with a roll of her eyes and no real bite in her tone. "And if you'll take a closer look at their eyes, you'll see that these vampires are a bit different from the ones we normally see. Their golden eyes are an indication that they only drink animal blood, not human blood. As for the wolves, well, they're not quite what they appear to be either. They're actually members of the Quileute tribe, and they are shape-shifters who take on the form of wolves the size of horses. Now if the four of you could let them go?" she pressed.

It was with extreme reluctance that her four friends acquiesced. When they were released, the vampires looked extremely disconcerted; the wolves were all upset, all once more on their feet, hackles up as they growled low.

Hermione turned to them and said, "Please, forgive my friends. The war has changed us all and made all of us rather more jumpy than we used to be." She paused, but seemed to be unable to resist adding reproachfully, "Of course, you didn't have to try to attack them, either. Yes, I realize they just appeared out of the blue with no warning and a lot of noise, but I would have thought the Cullens at least would have recognized the uselessness of attacking witches and wizards."

Everyone in the room bar Severus, Bella, Carlisle, and Esme, none of whom had done anything to attack anyone, looked sheepish at her words and everyone settled back down after exchanging apologies. Severus experienced a bizarre moment of awe at the fact that his own impossibly arrogant godson was one of those his small lover had managed to cow.

Before anyone could say anything else, however, there was another series of cracks; this time, the vampires and wolves managed to suppress the urge to attack, though half the wolves still jumped. This time they all found themselves facing a rather irate middle-aged red-haired woman, accompanied by a tall man in his twenties (perhaps a little older than Sam) with his long red hair in a pony-tail, a set of tall red-haired twins, a man Snape's age with brown hair, a young woman a few years older than Hermione with short spiky hair a shocking shade of lime-green, a girl Ginny's age with long blonde curls and strange pale eyes, and an older, severe looking woman who looked quite the picture of a stereotypical witch with her robes and wide-brimmed, pointed hat.

A second after the red-haired woman had appeared, her eyes lit on the curly-haired witch who suddenly seemed to be shrinking back and looking extremely guilty. "Hermione Jean Granger!" she screeched as she stormed over. "Young lady, we've been worried sick about you! First you run off without telling anyone where you're going and you make me swear not to tell anyone that you're going at all, leaving everyone else to think you're dead, then you hide for eight months without one single bloody letter, and THEN I find out from Minerva McGonagall that you go gallivanting about with Severus Snape without coming home first and get yourself into fights with vampires and oversized wolves and heaven only knows what else! WHAT were you thinking?!"

All the wolves and two or three of the vampires, including Emmett, were in awe of this witch who had managed to reduce Hurricane Hermione to little more than a shame-faced, teary-eyed teenage girl.

"I'm sorry, Molly," Hermione said, her voice small and sounding lost. Her lips trembled, her eyes filling. "I just didn't know what else to do. I had to get away. But you're right. I shouldn't have left without telling anyone, and I'm so sorry for scaring everyone into thinking I was dead."

Molly Weasley made an impatient noise and seized Hermione's hands, hauling her up out of the loveseat and into her embrace. "There, there, dear," the older woman said, her voice having lost all trace of anger as she held Hermione tightly and rocked her back and forth. "It doesn't matter why you left, only that you're safe now and back with us. But don't you ever do that again, understand?"

Hermione nodded, her face still buried in Molly Weasley's shoulder. She'd all but forgotten what a motherly embrace felt like, and couldn't believe how long she'd gone without one. Suddenly the pain of missing her own mother appeared in her throat, a lump the size of an egg, and she couldn't stop the tears. She held onto Molly Weasley for a long time and cried tears she hadn't allowed herself to shed since the day she'd erased her parents' memories of her.

But all tears must come to an end, and hers were no exception. When she raised her face from Molly's shoulder, her expression was calm once more, and once she'd wiped her tears away the only traces of her eruption of emotion were a red, blotchy nose and eyelashes that were still spiked with tears.

Once she'd composed herself, she found herself hugging the rest of the newcomers, beginning with Ginny Potter, who hugged her almost as fiercely as her mother had, though without the tirade that preceded Molly's embrace. She was followed by her husband Harry and brother Ron, then by Draco, Bill, Fred, George, Tonks, and Luna, all of whom, in one way or another, made certain she was aware of their relief that she was safe and their displeasure that she'd left them without telling them.

The last to hug her, aside from Professor McGonagall, who'd already gotten her reunion with Hermione the day before and so now stood over by where Severus still sat on the loveseat, was Remus Lupin. "Thank you, Remus," she told him as she embraced him. "Thank you for coming to check on me and for keeping my secret even though it was wrong for me to hide."

Remus was about to say something, but suddenly, he seemed to freeze. She was about to ask what was wrong when she heard the almost imperceptible sound of him inhaling air through his nose. Surely he couldn't smell Severus on her! she thought, panicking.

He pulled out of her embrace, holding her at arm's length as he frowned at her. "You're in heat," he said, sounding surprised.

Well, that threw her for a loop. She gaped at him, unsure whether to go on the defensive and protest or to ask him why he thought that or to tell him that it certainly wasn't his business. But before she could even say anything, he frowned more deeply, taking another discreet sniff, and said, "No, that's not right. No, you're…" Another sniff. "You're…" His eyes widened in horror before his expression darkened with fury.

And suddenly, he'd spun around, shoving her behind him, and his wand was out and pointed directly at Severus Snape, who shot to his feet and faced him, though he didn't reach for his wand.

"What have you been doing to her, Snape?" Remus demanded, his voice low and menacing.

The wolves all shifted, their bodies tensing as their canine instincts told them what their eyes could not. Sam was particularly tense as he responded instinctively to the threat of possibly yet another Alpha wolf to contend with. He'd accepted Snape so far because he knew the dark wizard had no interest in anything other than Hermione. But this wolf-wizard was an unknown entity.

"You're not her father, Lupin," Severus growled back, though he still made no move toward his wand. At the warning in his tone, the Quileutes were reminded again of the demon-wolf, the shadow-male they'd met yesterday, who could cause pain with a look. Wisely, Sam figured it would be best to stay out of this particular confrontation between dominant males. "And I did nothing against her wishes."

Apparently that wasn't the right answer. Lupin, his eyes almost as black as Severus's, raised his wand, about to cast a hex. But before he could get anything out, verbally or otherwise, his wand flew out of his grasp. Likewise, Severus's wand appeared from his pocket, and both wands flew into the grasp of Minerva McGonagall, who had foreseen and been prepared for problems others might have with Severus and Hermione being together.

Enraged, Lupin took a step toward Severus, only to halt as a small form darted past him and stopped between himself and his intended target. "Stop, Remus! He's telling the truth!" Hermione pled.

He nearly lost it then. "So you're telling me you willingly let him take you and get you pregnant?" he roared.

Shocked, everyone froze and stared in the midst of a silence so profound that a pin dropping to the floor would have caused an echo.

"Wh-what?" Hermione squeaked.

Lupin seemed to be fighting to calm down. "You're pregnant, Hermione. I can smell it, and him, all over you."

"H…how do you…how can you tell?" she asked, stumbling over her words as her mouth fought to catch up with her mind.

Surprisingly, it was Molly Weasley who answered. "The process of implantation into the uterine wall by the embryo is much quicker among witches than among Muggle women, for one thing," she said brusquely. She looked as though she were struggling to come to terms with what was going on, and had decided to let the matter of the relationship between Hermione and Snape rest for the moment in favor of answering questions. "Among Muggle women, the process normally takes about six days. For witches, it takes place within one or two."

Molly very carefully kept her eyes on Hermione's face and away from Severus. It was much easier to deal with the idea of simply a pregnant Hermione than the idea of a Hermione pregnant by Severus Snape. She knew that if she looked at Severus at the moment, she would lose her composure.

"For another," Remus said, sounding as if he were trying to keep his emotions in check, "Given that I have already had a child with my wife, I would say I already know what a pregnant witch smells like. It took me longer to realize what was happening with her, but I do recall one day thinking that she smelled differently than she had the day before."

Hermione's and Severus's eyes widened at that. They both recalled Severus's remark just before coming here this evening that her smell had changed. That was what he'd smelled! But because his senses were so newly improved, he'd never smelled the hormonal changes in a recently-impregnated woman before, so he'd had no idea that was what he was smelling then.

Hermione shook her head, helplessly. "But…no, it doesn't…I can't be pregnant!" she wailed, distressed.

"I assure you, you can," Lupin growled blackly.

She shook her head again, her eyes filling once more. "No, you don't understand. I can't be pregnant because I can't get pregnant!" she cried. In her distress, she stepped further back, seeking the comfort of Severus's body. His arms wound about her waist and pulled her back against his chest, and her fingers wrapped around his in a death-grip. "When I first went to St. Mungo's after the Final Battle, the Healers did an assessment of my over-all health and told me that because of the amount of time Bellatrix Lestrange tortured me combined with the stress of being on the run, my ovaries and womb were damaged beyond even magical repair and I'd never even be able to conceive. I never told anyone because it was too painful. It was part of why I felt like I had to get away and went to live in the rainforest."

It was this that finally caused Remus to calm down some. He was still absolutely furious with Snape, but he decided to deal with the bat later. For now, Hermione.

If Remus was shocked and horrified by the pregnancy, then Minerva McGonagall was shocked and horrified by the news that the extent of the damage caused by Bellatrix Lestrange's torture was far greater than Hermione would even admit. Then, when she recalled her own overexcitement at her discovery of the relationship between Hermione and Severus, she mentally cringed. She dearly hoped neither of them had heard her muttering under her breath about her hopes that maybe she'd finally be getting the grandbabies she'd always wanted. That had been rather uncharacteristically tactless of her, though logically she knew there was no way she could have known as Hermione had never told anyone.

At least there was a fair bit that had been explained. If Hermione truly had believed she was unable to bear children, she would have had no reason to use magical contraceptives; witches and wizards were immune to most sexually transmitted diseases, so protection against them would have been pointless as well. Why not allow oneself to be careless if there were no consequences?

"Well, Hermione, it seems as if there has been a mistake. Either the Healer who told you you'd never have children was wrong, or your womb and ovaries did in fact heal while you were in the rainforest. Whatever the case, you most certainly are pregnant, and I am sure that I am not the only person in the room who can smell it." He glanced at some of the Cullens as if to confirm this fact, and several of them, Carlisle, Esme, and Edward included, nodded their heads in agreement.

"Now," Molly said, struggling to keep her voice even. "Would either of you care to explain how the devil this…pregnancy came about?"

Severus couldn't resist. Safe behind the protection of Hermione Granger, a formidable witch in her own right, he raised one eyebrow. "Surely you know how it all works, Molly? Having given birth to seven of your own offspring?" he said with mock incredulity.

Her blazing brown eyes snapped to his and he suppressed the urge to flinch. "So help me, Severus, if you can't give me a straight answer without being a smart-arse…" she growled.

Finally Minerva decided it would be wise to speak up. "That is enough, all of you," the Gryffindor Matriarch said, her voice ringing. She stepped forward, her stern face expressionless. She was in full Headmistress mode; she had been teaching at Hogwarts since before all of them were born, including Molly Weasley, and they would all do well to remember that.

Now if the wolves and vampires had been intimidated by Molly Weasley, they realized beyond a doubt that this oldest of the witches made the red-haired witch look about as dangerous as a clucking mother hen. They could all sense the power of the red-haired witch named Molly, yes, but this older witch radiated an aura that made them slightly uneasy. The wolves realized that what they felt was similar to how they had all felt at one point or another as children in the presence of an intimidating school principal, only magnified. In fact, had they all been paying closer attention to their own reactions, they would have been interested to note that each one of them responded deferentially to her power by laying down, though none of them went so far as to roll over onto their backs and expose their bellies.

The wolves and vampires also watched with surprise and interest how all the rest of the witches and wizards stopped arguing and all turned to look at the stern elderly woman.

"Molly, Remus, it is understandable that you feel protective of Miss Granger and upset by this turn of events. However, as I have taught every single one of you, I know every single one of you well, including Severus, though he was never in my House. Unlike the rest of you, I have seen Severus and Hermione together, and they speak the truth. Their relationship is based on mutual affection, and as Hermione is no longer his student, neither of them is in the wrong. More than that, neither of them would ever do a thing to harm the other. They will fight, as you have fought with Arthur, Molly, and as you have fought with Tonks, Remus. But ultimately, just as your love has withstood the test of time, so will theirs. I expect this to be the last I hear against them."

It seemed Ginny Potter could no longer contain herself. Everyone was distracted by a loud squeal of pure joy as Ginny ran to her friend and threw her arms around her. "You're pregnant, Hermione!" she beamed. "You can have kids after all! Now our babies can grow up together!"

Most of the witches and wizards, with the exception of Molly Weasley, who had helped Ginny make the diagnosis just that morning, and Minerva McGonagall, who was too dignified, gaped at her.

"Gin," Harry choked, his eyes wide with shock and hope. "You're -"

His wife turned to him, now looking a bit sheepish. She released Hermione and went over to him, taking his hand. "I was going to tell you at our place, over dinner, when we were alone. Mum and I found out this morning. But just now I got caught up in the surprise of Hermione's pregnancy and it sort of slipped out."

Harry said nothing else. Instead, he drew her into his arms and held her tightly. He could have told her how incredibly happy she'd just made him, telling him they were going to be parents. He could have told her it was the greatest gift she could have given him, presenting him with something he hadn't had since his own parents had died. He could have proclaimed right there for everyone present how much he loved her. But he said nothing, because they both knew that as marvelous as the news was to them, Hermione's pregnancy took the cake. Hermione's parents had been taken from her, too, albeit by a spell that removed her from their memories so that they no longer knew her rather than by Death. Severus's life with his parents had been worse than Harry's with the Dursleys. They both deserved the happiness of starting their own family perhaps even more so than Harry did. Not to mention the fact that it seemed Hermione had thought she'd never be able to bear children at all.

"Thank you, love," he whispered to his wife so that only she could hear.

Before she could say anything in response, however, they all heard a voice mutter, "Wow. There are way too many pregnant women running around. Forks has no idea what's about to hit it."

They all looked up just in time to see a scowling Rosalie give Emmett a solid whack across the back of his head. "What was that for, babe?" he pouted, rubbing his head where she'd hit him.

"Don't be so insensitive," she ordered.

Hermione, Severus, and Jacob Black all thought that was rather a bit much coming from her, but they all bit their lips and said nothing.

As humorous as the situation was, however, it couldn't hold Hermione's attention for long. After all, she'd just been given a miracle beyond any she'd thought she'd ever see. She returned to Severus and stood before him, gazing up at his face, wanting to gage his reaction to the fact that he was to become a father.

Would he still want to be with her? He had told her last night that he would never let her go, but she didn't know if he wanted children. In fact, if she were to judge simply by what she'd seen from him over her years as one of his students, she'd say he hated children. She didn't know if he'd ever planned to become a father, didn't know if he even wanted to. All she knew was that she was keeping her baby. After having gone so long believing she'd never have children of her own, she'd never been happier to be proven wrong.

He beat her to the punch, however. Meeting her gaze with his, he asked her softly, "So now that you know you can in fact have children, is this what you want? If you wish I will stay at your side and help you raise our son or daughter and help you love it. Or, if you are not ready for a child, I will help you decide what to do. I will do my best, whatever you desire."

She smiled, trying to keep her tears from spilling over. "Severus, you've just given me one of the things I never thought I'd ever have. You've given me a son or daughter when I thought the ability to bear children was lost to me," she told him. Then her smile grew slightly more mischievous. "And I distinctly remember you saying yesterday that I was yours, and you'd never let me go. As far as I'm concerned, it's a bit late to go back on your promise. You're stuck with me now." With that, she wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest just as she lost the battle with her tears and wept.

He wrapped his own arms around her and pressed kisses to her hair. "I did say that, and I still mean it. If you wish to stay with me, then I will never let you go." He tangled a hand in her wild curls and tugged gently, pulling her head back and bending so that he could kiss her, both of them completely oblivious to the catcalls of the younger witches and wizards (and Emmett) and the sniffs of disapproval from Remus Lupin and Molly Weasley.

Okay, who saw it coming? Pats on the back if you did. If you're confused and thinking, But wait, you said she couldn't have children! just remember from Chapter One where she's talking to the chief of the rainforest tribe and he tells her something that distresses her. I haven't said yet what he told her, but I will bring it up sometime later in the story. Maybe the next chapter or two, I make no promises as to when. And who knows, maybe at some point I'll have her pay the rainforest tribe another little visit in order to share the good news.

RP13