A/N: Mwahahaha! Thanks ever so much for all you love and reviews. They're very sweet and they amuse me immensely. I want to throw a special shout-out to one of my favourite readers, Afeleon, who diligently and marvellously follows, faves and reviews everything I write, in addition to propping me up on Tumblr and making me giggle all too often. Our chats are wonderful *hugs*

Much love! xx-Kitten.


Bewitch, Ensnare

By Kittenshift17


Chapter Eleven


Hermione slapped him. A flash of hot rage seized her and before she could think better of it her open palm collided with his right cheek with a stinging snap. He barely flinched, but the ice in his gaze would've destroyed her were it not for her own fury. Unable to speak when she was so angry and tears were burning her eyes, Hermione darted past him into the kitchen and away through the other door into the dining room and then through to her bedroom at the other end of the hall.

He was right behind her and he caught the door in a feral grip before she could slam it closed. Hermione had never been so angry. Not in all her life. Not when she'd learned Ron was cheating on her. Not when they'd fought in the war. Not when her parents had disowned her in their terror after she restored their memories following the Final Battle. Not even when Snape had refused to respond to her letters about her pregnancy.

Stomping across the room, Hermione snatched up her dressing gown and pulled it on before dropping her bath towel. She was still naked underneath, but she felt a little more secure in her clothing and her ability to refrain from being exposed. When she turned toward him, her voice flicked out like the coldest arctic wind.

"Your memory is a little foggy right now, so allow me to fill you in on a few things, you heartless bastard," she said, advancing on his slowly while he glared at her, blocking the door and levelling her such a look of hatred that she'd have feared for her life if not for her own fury. "I wrote to you sixteen times when I realised I was pregnant. I wrote that I was scared, and that I didn't know what to do, and that you'd fucking knocked me up. I was nineteen years old! You, at the time, were thirty-eight. You were my fucking school teacher, no matter the inappropriate thoughts I entertained on a daily basis!"

Hermione stalked up to him slowly, refusing to acknowledge her slip of tongue about her fantasies about him that had landed them in bed together to begin with. He stood there, unflinching, his cheek a terrible shade of crimson in the shape of her hand-print.

"I told you that I was pregnant with your unborn child and what did you do, Severus? Did you write back to me, suggesting that it was a mistake you wish you'd never made? Did you write back saying you wanted me to get rid of the kid because the scandal would be too great and you obviously never wanted friends, let alone family? Did you even fucking bother to reply at all? No! No, you couldn't even be arsed to acknowledge what we'd done after taking my virginity, forcing a dangerous artefact into my care, and then dissecting me with that wretched scalpel of a tongue until I felt lower than worthless for even entertaining the idea that I'd mean more than a quick fuck!

"Instead, I got silence! My owls all went unanswered. I had to face not only the shame of knowing I'd given my virginity to a man who didn't give a damn about me, but also the wretched truth that despite your apparent regret, I was fucking pregnant! I had to lower myself to the shame of even daring to write to you. You! The most terrifying, heartless, cruel man on the entire planet! Do you know how much effort it took to even send the first letter? And you didn't reply. You didn't reply to the following fifteen after it either, when I desperately tried to figure out what you wanted me to do about it and whether or not I shouldn't just run away to a foreign country for fear of being shunned in our world for having a child out of wedlock with a man who didn't deign to even answer my fucking owls!"

Snape opened his mouth as though he meant to argue with her, to deny receiving the owls or perhaps to tell her that the answer to the problem should have been clear. Hermione spoke over him, raising her voice before he could utter a sound.

"And now you have the fucking arrogance to get in my face? To triumphantly sneer that you trapped me into only being able to have kids with you? To all but call me a whore for even thinking to help two of my best friends have kids when their other options were limited? You want to stand in my Merlin cursed house and call me a fucking murderer?" Hermione seethed, advancing on him until she'd invaded his personal space. He glared down the length of his nose at her, his face flushing as his own anger began to rise.

Hermione reached up and gripped his chin, rising on her toes to stare into his eyes, brimming with hatred. He attempted to pull free of her grip but she didn't release him.

"You think I aborted your child?" she asked in a low, cold voice. "You just assume to know how I handled the situation when you offered zero input on the matter, despite the numerous times I asked for it? I never aborted our child, Snape. I would never abort our child."

"Then where the hell is my kid?" he demanded when tears filled her eyes, staring down at her and looking suspicious now in addition to being angry.

"I miscarried," Hermione whispered, tears trickling from her eyes to run down her cheeks once more. "I hung onto him for seventeen weeks before he gave up on me, too. There was an accident at work and a bookshelf fell on me. No one knew I was pregnant. I hadn't heard from you and I was too scared to tell anyone else. While everyone else thought I was recovering from the scare of almost being crushed and breaking a few ribs and my wrist, I was here. In this flat, by myself, sobbing into Crookshanks' fur while I miscarried my baby, all alone."

She released his chin with a little shove and stalked away from him, trying to control the urge she had to throw herself on the bed and sob.

"Murderer, you called me?" she asked when she reached her bedside table. She looked back over to find him standing in the doorway, suddenly stricken instead of angry or suspicious. Digging into her bedside drawer, Hermione withdrew a bottle of muggle anti-depressants. She threw it at him. "If I were a murderer, I probably wouldn't need to take those three years after the fucking fact! I wouldn't have had to toddle myself off to a muggle doctor for treatment for depression when I found myself sitting in the kitchen and using Slicing hexes on my flesh just to feel something. I wouldn't have had to sit in a muggle therapy office every week for a fucking year to talk about how the man who meant more to me than he fucking should have, took my virginity, called me an idiot, knocked me up and then refused to speak to me for the following three years!"

Angrily, Hermione wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dressing gown. She was so sick of feeling sad about what had happened and she'd thought talking to him, getting it all out there, admitting it all, might help. Hell, she'd thought even just seeing him again would help. But it didn't. It just ripped her heart open all over again

Unable to keep looking at him, she turned away. The thought that he wouldn't even admit, one way or the other, if he'd purposely trapped her into having kids with none but him ate at her psyche as she stared out the window to the small park across the street from her flat. The answer would give her some indication as to his feelings at the time and whether he'd maybe cared for her too or if she really had just been a shag of convenience who didn't want to shine his knob just because he was a bloody hero.

"You…" Snape began before trailing off, at a loss for words. Hermione fought the urge to look over her shoulder at him. She felt like she should check on Harry and Draco to make sure their fight hadn't woken both small boys. She needed a cup of tea. Tea fixed everything.

But he was still blocking the door and apparently struggling with the contradicting facts to what he'd obviously believed she had done. There was no other way out of the room unless she Apparated. Hermione almost whacked herself in the forehead for not thinking of it. She couldn't keep standing there and thinking about it without a cup of tea. She would think herself into a panic attack or more fury. Or she would ball her eyes out all over again and she refused to let Snape see her so vulnerable. Scooping up her wand, Hermione turned on the spot and Apparated across the house to land in the kitchen.

The pot of tea he'd been making when she'd stomped off to the shower sat innocently on the kitchen counter. Still steeping. When she pressed her hand to the side of it she realised he'd put it on stasis charm. Lifting the lid, Hermione peered inside to make sure it hadn't grown too strong. She needn't have bothered. Like everything he brewed, it was perfect. Breathing in the scent of the freshly brewed tea, Hermione pushed away the thoughts of him that doing so always conjured.

She almost jumped when she turned, tea made the way she liked it, to find him standing the kitchen doorway. His eyes flicked to the cup of tea she'd made for him, perfectly primed with the adjustments he liked – one sugar and a dash of milk – before bouncing back to her face. His expression was as devoid of hints to his thoughts as it always was. The sight of him, so young now compared to the older version of him she'd been accustomed to, did uncomfortable things to her body and she cursed not having donned knickers.

It seemed emotional upheaval only increased her desire to shag him all over again. At this rate she was in danger of leaving a puddle on the floor. Watching him over the rim of her teacup, Hermione took measured sips. He seemed to need time to process what she'd told him. He also seemed to have deflated, no longer angry at her for potentially aborting his unborn child. Now he just seemed… confused.

She watched him when he sparked into gear once more, striding across the small kitchen and collecting the cup of tea she'd made for him. He sniffed it carefully, having learned his lesson after consuming De-Again Potion, apparently, or simply not trusting her not to poison him.

"Do you actually expect me to believe you were going to keep my child when I refused to speak to you?" he asked her, invading her personal space as she leaned against the counter. He stood close enough that Hermione had to tip her head back to hold his gaze, his superior height dwarfing her own.

"Have a look at the memories if you don't believe me," Hermione sighed, opening her eyes wide and calling forward the painful memories right from the minute she'd slept with him, and flipping through all the way to the days she'd spent suffering the wretchedness of her miscarriage four months later.

She felt him dive into her mind to view them, delving through them while she stared at him. It was disorienting, she thought, standing there staring into his eyes, seeing him before her whilst also seeing her memories in her mind's eye. He frowned slightly, she noticed, his brow furrowing further the longer he viewed the memories, watching her sob and pull at her hair in her bedroom while waiting for replies to letters that never came. He examined the ones where she curled her hands around her womb protectively, muttering to the baby growing within her about what a wretched man his father was for refusing to write back to her.

He watched her caress the taut flesh, barely beginning to thicken as she began to show, as she sang soft lullabies with tears in her eyes promising that the child would always have her, even if his father didn't want him. More flew by of her throwing herself into research on pregnancy and on raising magical children. He lingered over the one where she sewed enchanted sleeping sheets, pouring her magic and her hopes and protectiveness for her child into them as she began preparing for the eventual delivery that never came.

Worst were those of the pain in her lower abdomen and her shoulder following the accident at work. Her wrist and her ribs felt inconsequential in comparison to the deep, low ache in her womb and her lower back when the first spot of blood appeared in her knickers. Snape watched them all, through to the very end, where she sat on the toilet, peering through her fingers and her tear-blurred eyes at the tiny human-shaped lump of tissue that had worked its way from deep inside her. She recalled again the devastation as she'd taken in the sight of the tiny fingers and toes that had formed on the ends of hands and feet, arms and legs.

Lifeless.

Snape withdrew from her mind so gently she almost didn't notice. The touch of cool hands cupping her cheeks startled her out of her memories and Hermione blinked more tears from her eyes as she met his gaze. Even after witnessing it all, his eyes were dry and his face belied little of his thoughts.

"You… wanted to keep my child?" he whispered. "Even though you were so young? Even though I'm a wretch? Even knowing all you know about my life – from the fact that I was abused and neglected; an angry, vindictive prick; a murderer; a Death Eater; a horrid teacher; and all the way through to the heartless cunt too scared to write back to you when you told me you were pregnant. You wanted to keep the child of such a man?"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders helplessly and nodded as another tear trickled from the corner of her eye.