Patrimony

Chapter 12

Severus Snape strode into his apartment. Hermione, practicing a devilishly tricky charm to finesse water from the air's humidity, didn't even look up. Normally, Snape would have understood, and lauded such concentration, but this time Snape wanted her attention...and he wanted it now. So he strode between Hermione, and her fragile floating water globules, causing the entire lot to splat onto the carpet. Hermione growled in frustration.

"Severus, I was right on the edge of a breakthrough!"

"As was I, Miss Granger. And now I've broken through. I've done it. I know how to address your morning sickness."

Hermione stuck out a hand, and he dutifully plopped a small round container of lotion into it. She hoped this would work. She was almost halfway into her pregnancy, and still her unwellness continued. The mediwitch told her everything was okay, she was simply one of those unfortunate women whose body didn't reach peace with pregnancy at the end of the first trimester. Though she vomited less often, the nagging feeling of tiredness and mild nausea was ever-present. That is, until she spread the cream on her hands and arms. The magic was instant, a warm flowing wave of wellness inundating her being. Hermione burst into tears of gratitude.

"It works!" she wailed.

Six weeks ago, the tears would have sent Snape into frantic indecision. Now, they were as normal to him as Hermione's charm work or her pastry-fetish. He saw them as what they were, tears of relief, and as such, was well pleased. He tucked her into his body, and let her tears flow until their end. When, at last they stilled, she looked at him with a brilliant smile on her face.

"Oh, gods, Severus, you are going to be a very popular man!"

Snape smiled, a small smile, creaky as an unoiled door, but a smile nonetheless. "Rightfully so, Miss Granger. Let's see what your mediwitch has to say about it now! "

Hermione snorted. Senora Ana's pronouncements on the impossibility of a magical morning sickness cure had always rankled him. "So, how on earth did you do it?"

"Well, something you said yesterday about evolution made me I realize why I was failing. Morning sickness evolved as a way for the body to guide the woman away from harmful eating, undereating, and overexertion. Every time I tried to thwart the process, your very dna would rally to neutralize the magic. So I decided to swtich tactics, and help your body to communicate the issues. If you eat something it finds harmful, it will give you a warning; your hands will turn red. Continue eating, and the body will do what it needs to. If you overtire yourself, your hands will turn blue...if you do not rest quickly, the illness will return. Fail to eat enough, and your hands will turn yellow. Respond and you will be fine. Ignore the warning, and you will again get ill. The magic in this cream gives your body another avenue of communication. It takes evolution one step better. And thus, your symptoms are alleviated."

Hermione skipped over to him, kissed him hard on the lips. "You..." she kissed him again, softer, "...are a brilliant man." One more kiss, this one so soft he could barely feel it. "Thank you."

Snape opened his dark, fathomless eyes, which had drifted closed during the last of the 3 kisses, "You...are most welcome."

xxxx

While the prenatal care she got at the hands of the Mediwitch and Severus far surpassed the care a muggle woman would have enjoyed, there was no magical imaging technology. If she wanted to see the baby, and determine its sex, then muggle was the way to go. Hermione was determined to get an ultrasound.

Severus, naturally suspicious of anything muggle in nature, had his doubts about the process. But all it took was suggesting that he stay home for this appointment, and he became determined to attend. Reverse psychology. Worked on equally well on children and potions-masters.

Walking with Snape through muggle London was an experience. They reached the building in question without incident, although there was the near miss when Severus mistook the red hand sign in a crosswalk for a symbol of dark sorcery, and almost wanded it out existence. Otherwise, it had been a lot like walking through town with her boyfriend...her monochoromatic, anacronistic, pouting boyfriend...but her boyfriend nonetheless.

She found him particularly attractive in his black slacks, white shirt, and black sweater. It had taken a great deal of persuasion, cool logic, and finally a sexual act that may have been considered illegal in some areas to get him into them. But she'd done it. And he looked wonderful. Unfortunately, even attired in his favorite color, it was plain that Severus was entirely uncomfortable. He kept tugging at his collar and cuffs miserably.

"Don't worry Severus, you still look evil and scary."

"I do not seek to look evil and scary, Miss Granger." This was said reflexively, but after a moment he turned to her and said, "Do I normally look evil and scary?"

Hermione swallowed her smile and nodded. He didn't smile, but couldn't keep the pleased look from his eyes. It died as they walked in through the clinic door.

"Miss Granger. You do not have to do this. Let us avoid this barbarism, and catch the 4pm Express home."

"Nice try, Severus. And could you pretend to call me Hermione for the duration of this appointment? Having the father of my child call me Miss Anything is too weird for muggle wellbeing."

He sighed, "Very well, Hermione."

There was, of course the wait. While she was perfectly happy to peruse a tabloid magazine, he huffed and sighed as if being subjected to mild torture. She'd seen him wait stilly and silently for hours at home, with no impatience. But here, he was unable, or, she thought more likely, unwilling to be so meditative. First, there was his refusal to sit, because the only seat available would have placed his back to the door. Second, she had to restrain him from offering his morning sickness cure to the two green women in the corner. He'd become downright compassionate towards pregnant women of late, and he greatly resented her assertion that curing the lot of them would result in unnecessary attention. And finally, he'd taken to staring at her a lot, a habit she'd found at first endearing, then disconcerting, and now downright annoying.

When the nurse called her name, Hermione almost wept with gratitude. Not that weeping was at all out of the ordinary these days, but still. They were shuffled into a cheerful examination with a padded platform, and a large humming machine in the corner. Snape backed away from it as if it were a basilisk with a bad attitude. An efficient young woman came in, greeted "Mr. and Mrs Granger" (Hermione didn't bother to correct her, although Severus' eyebrows went up into his hairline.) She had Hermione lie back, lift her shirt, and proceeded to squirt a cold, clear goo onto her stomach. The jelly's temperature made Hermione start, which of course upset Severus, who in an instant had his wand at the ready. It took Hermione several minutes to get him calmed down, his wand put away, and the technician's memory suitably altered. But once that was accomplished, they could procede. Then the sensor was pressed to her abdomen, the moment came into quiet focus.

"Here is your baby."

Severus' mouth gaped open. He'd seen pictures of what an ultrasound was supposed to look like; Hermione had wanted to make sure that he didn't think she was carrying an alien inside of her. But he hadn't been prepared that his child would seem so very...alive to him. He hadn't been prepared to watch that fluttering heart, and feel an answering flutter in his stomach, see the baby show a profile then a little round butt, then a giant dome of a head. It was, quite frankly, the most marvelous thing he'd ever seen.

He looked at Hermione, and was surprised to find her watching, not with tears in her eyes, but with a calm, knowing smile on her face. Like she had had confirmed a fact she had always suspected, but which had to this point remained unproven. For the first time, she looked to his eyes, not like a woman ripe with child, but like a mother. Then Hermione turned her eyes from the screen, and caught his. Her expression didn't change. And his stomach once again filled with flutters, just as it had when he first saw his child's heart a moment ago.

"So, do you want to know the sex, or do you want to be surprised?"

Hermione looked at him, and took in his careful nod. She turned back to the technician.

"We think more information is better. We'd like to know please."

The technician was still a bit relaxed from her recent memory alteration, so she smiled a bit woozily as she pointed out the baby's genital area. "Well, Mr. and Mrs Granger, here's your money shot. As you can see, you are definitely having a baby girl."

At this, Hermione broke out into the previously expected tears. And if Severus teared up a bit too, there was no one but the recently-obliviated technician to see it.

End Chapter 12

AN: It's good to be back at the keyboard. I missed you guys! Thanks for reviewing, Theolyn.

PS: to the reviewer who questioned the "handfasting" reference, my understanding is that handfasting was a traditional one-year trial marriage in the older Celtic cultures. It was a way of trying someone out without being stuck in marriage should the two of you prove infertile together. So that part seems to fit. Furthermore, it doesn't seem as if illegitimacy is something that would be easily accepted in the wizarding world. Particularly since Snape wants an heir, it would be important for their union to have some kind of social validation. A handfasting seemed like a great idea to me. And yes, I did do Ren Faire in my teens/early twenties...don't hold it against me! :-)