Gumby

Chapter 12: The Big News

"Severus, stay a moment," Madam Pomfrey said after she cured the girl, whom did have a mild concussion and allowed her to fall of sleep. She was so tired from lack of sleep. Severus turned around and wondered why she wanted him to stay. He didn't object, because he really did want to stay, but as her Head of House, he was only expected to stay there for a moment and make sure that she was fine. If he'd stayed it would have looked strange.

Severus watched as Madam Pomfrey performed a series of tests on the sleeping girl. After several moments she turned to Severus. "Samara has been throwing up every morning," she stated.

"She's bulimic?" Severus asked dryly, trying not to sound very interested or invested. Though he was, very. Might explain the loss of weight, though, it wasn't like she was eating very much.

"Well that's what I thought too. Aurora knows the girl well, apparently Samara has had boyfriends in the past, mainly Griffindors it seems and that's why no one has known about them, what with the House rivalry," Severus nodded, feeling the vein in his temple throbbing. What was she trying to get at? And he didn't see why he needed to listen to this bit of information.

"Forgive me, but I don't see what you want me to know," Severus said.

"Aurora says that the girl was never sexually active, however, recently the girl has taken up Astrology and confessed to Aurora that just before she returned to Hogwarts the man that she thought she'd fallen in love with… well you understand what I'm trying to say," she said as she looked up at him.

"Yes, but I don't understand why you are telling me," Severus said, gritting his teeth. He did not need to know that Samara was sexually awakened. She was his student. That was simply far too much info! However, he knew that his anger actually stemmed from the fact that the man had abused Samara, and it was abuse because clearly if the man was her gymnast instructor he was older than her and Samara had been underage. She was still underage!

The man was in the position of control and power and even if it was Samara's idea, the man would have still been guilty of Statutory rape. By law, Samara was not yet of age to be able to consent to sexual activity. Besides, the man was an authority figure to the girl, and he had a responsibility to protect her. It simply outraged Severus.

"Because as her head of house you should know that Samara is pregnant, I just tested her myself. All the symptoms we thought were depression, are actually symptoms of pregnancy," she said, looking at the dark haired man who became pale.

Severus cleared his throat after a long moment of silence. His thoughts were far too muddled. "Does she know?" Severus asked.

"Know what?" Samara asked sleepily as she raised her head. She was sure she'd only been sleeping for about half and hour, but that wasn't any different from what she was able to sleep lately. Both teachers both turned to look at the teenage girl. She furrowed her brow as she looked at the way they looked at her so warily. "I'm not depressed. Well a little, but not the I'm not eating and sleeping because of it!" she said, feeling annoyed by how all the teachers were treating her, like she was some delicate mental-case.

"Why aren't you eating Samara?" Madam Pomfrey said, causing Samara to look over at her Mentor.

"I feel nauseous and can't stomach the food," she replied with a shrug, narrowing her eyes in accusation towards the woman. What wa she getting at?

Severus and Madam Pomfrey exchanged looks, wondering if she really didn't know or thought that they didn't and didn't want them to know."Do you feel more tired and sleepy than usual?" Pomfrey asked. Samara furrowed her brows.

"Yes, but I suppose that's because I'm not sleeping well. Insomnia keeps me up and then I wake up very early in the morning because I feel sick," Samara said, shrugging her shoulders, wondering why they were staring at her so pitifully.

"Have you missed you period?" Madam Pomfrey asked. Severus had to look away at this, did he really have to be there for this? Samara tossed her head of house a look as she blushed furiously. She wondered if the Healer was just trying to embarass her now. "Answer the question Samara," Madam Pomfrey said sternly. Samara turned to look at the Healer.

"Sometimes it skips a month, I have a very irregular period, but… well I was supposed to get it in the first week of November, so I guess that is the third one I've missed," she said very quickly, hoping that Professor Snape wasn't paying attention. Try as he might, there was nothing that he could think of that would make his hearing stop.

Poppy looked at her little apprentice with furrowed brows. It was starting to become apparent that the child really had no idea that she was pregnant. She grimaced as she realized that she would have the unhappy job of telling the child that she'd gotten pregnant from her first time, by a man who was a jerk and had dumped her slightly after he'd used her. "Samara dear… you're pregnant."

Samara inhaled sharply as she sat up and stared at the Healer. She furrowed her brows and looked from one teacher to the other, noticing that they were both avoiding her gaze. She looked down at her hands for a moment. "No, I can't be… I can't be pregnant," she said, shaking her head, feeling tears welling up in her eyes. "No… he used protection, I saw the bastard use protection," she said, her voice shaking and cracking with sobs she would not allow to rip from her throat.

Severus turned to look at Samara and felt his heart breaking. Samara had never uttered a curse before, however, he could only imagine how painful this was for her and understood that she was quite at a loss. "Muggle protection is very unreliable," Madam Pomfrey said delicately.

Samara shuddered as the tears finally broke the damn and started to rush down her face. Severus looked away, feeling very uncomfortable. He always hated to see people cry, usually he deemed tears as something undignified to show to someone else, however, it wasn't Samara's fault. None of it was her fault and he couldn't blame her for it. Yet, that did not take away from the need to want to rush out of there.

But he was rooted to the spot, and he didn't know why. A part of him wanted to try and console her, to get her to stop, but he had no idea how to do that and wouldn't allow himself to. His heart broke as he heard her soft sobs, he was vaguely aware of Madam Pomfrey making her way over to Samara's side and holding the girl in her arms. He cast a brief glance over at Samara, who was being held to Madam Pomfrey's chest and rocked back and forth as the older woman cooed softly to the young woman who appeared so child-like in her sobbing.

"What am I going to do?" she asked softly, her voice cracking as she continued to cry.

"There are always options…"

"I can't. It's a human, another human, a child. It's not its fault," Samara cried, making it quite obvious that she would certainly not have the heart to abort the baby. Severus expected as much, Samara was such a sweet girl. She seemed almost incapable of hurting anyone; he couldn't imagine her killing a baby, no matter how much she may have grown to hate the father.

"Well then you must learn to calm yourself Samara, because emotional upheavals are not good for the babe," Madam Pomfrey said a little gently. Samara nodded at this as she sat up and took in several deep breaths, wiping away the tears from her face.

"I don't want anyone to know," she said when she was able to find her voice. It was a little hoarse now from the crying.

"Of course not, but now there is a lot we need to talk about…"

TBC…

A/N: Well that's the new Chapter. Hope it's a little cleared now, her heartache that is. Anyway, please review!