The sacking of Trelawney, only to be replaced by Firenze was a huge weight on the rest of the staff. Not only were many of the teachers immensely shaken by the public display Umbridge had created, but the appointment of the centaur was cause for outrage as far as Umbridge was concerned. She had scheduled Firenze for double inquiries as well as upping her additional visits with the other teachers. Snape, who had been cautious to begin with, was now more on edge then ever. Deciding it was best to air on the side of safety, he left his parenting book under his bed whenever he wasn't reading it, putting additional enchantments over the cover to disguise it, and decided upon sending any mail to Sirius through Dumbledore himself.
The most obvious and dead giveaway to Snape's condition however was still the ever growing form of the baby, which, at around thirty weeks, was taking up more and more room across his stomach. He found his breathing was becoming labored and hitched farther up his chest when he tried to draw breath. Alder was growing straight up into his lungs and didn't seem to mind resting across his diaphragm when it was least convenient for him. Not only did this mean a mess of slight hiccups throughout the day, it gave him terrible indigestion and heart burn, something that was perhaps easier to bear then the morning sickness, but not when they were in tandem which happened about once a week.
The sleep he had been missing snuck up on him whenever he had a moments rest, sitting in an empty classroom and trying to correct papers had become nearly impossible as he was fast becoming to exhausted to work at all after dinner. He lamented his inability to indulge in caffeine and instead pressed hard to not go into lengthy detail with each corrected essay, but simply to finish them all as soon as he could.
Shower sounds interesting, thought we could have one here but both would be just as good. People had been dropping things off here just in case we want to double up on a few things, I said you would appreciate it a lot. Charms don't sound very good to me but I know being in disguise can be very useful.
If you could, I would really appreciate another picture. It would mean the world.
Snape had wrote Sirius about the baby shower just three days ago and had already received a response. He did wonder exactly what had been left at Grimmauld Place for him but knew that if Sirius went into detail they would be found out. Snape had only included Sirius on his interest in concealing charms to seem conversational, but he was glad all the same that Sirius wasn't trying to talk him out of it.
The idea of a picture did sound a little past due. Snape hunched slowly to draw out his secret stash of incriminating items from under his bed, keeping one hand tucked under his stomach, he separated some pages apart before drawing out the thick moving photograph of Alder, just a couple of months old, smaller then his middle finger. It moved slowly and seemed to quiver and Snape sat, sprawling his hand further over his belly, transfixed. To think that in a matter of months things had changed so drastically he felt as if he had been pregnant for years. The idea that he had initially rejected the idea now was a complete 180 from his current stance on his situation. A strange notion seemed to have washed over him, slowly at first then turning to a strong current that eroded him fast away. Never before had he felt so dulled, allowed to contemplate a more exciting future. It was stressful and it was doubtlessly emotional for him, but even after he spent a day crying or puking for no other reason then his body seemed quick to turn against him, he felt in the back of his mind, that everything was going to be alright.
He could not be sure of the future of course, and had never much felt safe on either side. But he could at least hope that his child would come out alright, that he would have a chance. He could picture it already, a boy of impossible wisdom and talent, widely popular but studious and sharp. There would probably be a streak of Sirius to contend with, but Snape was sure that he could at the very least mold it into something he could manage.
Snape made a point to remember the picture when he was going to have his next check up with Madame Pomfrey, who insisted on almost bi-weekly check ups as he passed thirty weeks.
"So your navel finally gave up the fight," She chuckled, running a warm hand down the front of his stomach, tapping lightly at the protrusion with a slight smile. Snape rolled his eyes, past the point of getting even mildly offended by whatever it was his body was doing now, the sight of himself naked in the shower was more of a resignation then a torture nowadays.
"He's been moving around a ridiculous amount." Snape remarked, almost bored. He massaged the bottom of his rib cage carefully, "And my breathing, it's very shallow."
"You're just feeling the kicks a lot more because you're running out of cushion with your amniotic fluid." Madame Pomfrey put away her tape measure, "And your not going to get much relief with your lungs until the baby drops and your getting ready for birth."
It seemed the remedy for most things now was simply birth, each time Madame Pomfrey said it, it put a chill down his spine. Reaffirming the obvious fact that Alder couldn't simply spend his whole life tucked inside his father, it still made the whole ordeal much more scary and real. Each new development was now a double edged sword and was meant with instant bubbling excitement and the sheer dread that meant that each finished day was a day closer to the birth.
"I don't suppose you have any preference for birthing now, do you?" Madame Pomfrey rolled up her measuring tape and marked down a tally on her clipboard.
"Do I have a choice?" Snape looked confused. He had purposefully not read ahead in all of his pregnancy books, but rather switched to reading into parenting at about the 35th week mark.
"Well considering you have something like a vaginal canal and have kept one through the birth I think it's safe to assume you could push him out just fine. We'll be able to check your effacement and dilation later on to support that theory but I don't see any reason yet to opt for a planned cesarean." Her eyes flicked upward, "Unless that's what you would prefer."
Snape felt a chill that had nothing to do with his exposed torso. He caught his reflection in the standing mirror on the opposite wall, his shoulders drawn in over his thin sunken chest, his belly taking up all the space in his lap, lightly heaving with each shallow breath. He shrugged lamely, sucking his cheek and staring back towards the floor.
"Birth is something we can try our best to plan and the baby will coach us into doing whatever we have to to make it work." Madame Pomfrey explained, "Your due date as stands is about two days before the last day of term. With your weight, the weight of the baby, your overall health- I don't believe we will have any problems as everything seems to be on track. You've truly defied the odds, Severus."
She shuffled through her papers, going back through the constant stream of notes she had been taking since last fall.
"Truth be told, I didn't think it would work." She admitted, her finger drawing a line down the page. "A variable full of variables, you remember? I had written down that I thought you would miscarry before fifteen weeks."
"W-Why?" Snape blustered, mildly offended by how plainly she had said it.
"You just weren't in the right shape for it. I'm sure you'll remember how much pain you were in when your hips were bothering you so badly? I thought that would be to much stress on the both of you. I thought you wouldn't be able to make an appropriate weight, and quite frankly your attitude-"
"I get it," Snape cut in, "But now I'm round and happy and better for it, so the baby's fine right?"
"Something like that," She laughed, flipping ahead. "You started taking an interest in the ordeal so everything began to iron out. Even when you had problems, especially that little spill around Christmas time- you came out on top."
"So?"
"So I know that this birth isn't going to be full of variables you can't manage." She put down her clipboard, looking intently at Snape. "I'm sure you have your concerns, you know your body best."
Snape simply shrugged again, wishing he could put on a shirt and get out of the uncomfortable wooden chair he was propped up on.
"What are you the most worried about?" She pressed, perhaps trying to come off as motherly. "Because if it's the pain-"
"I'm not bloody worried about the pain." Snape murmured, putting his face in his hands and rubbing his eyes hard, his length of black curtain-like hair swung over his shoulder. He had been hit with the cruciatus curse too many times to worry about any particular painful moment he might have to endure.
"It's just," He set his head atop his hands, still looking toward the floor. "I can read books and look at diagrams over and over and try and imagine exactly what's going on down there. I can try to understand on the basis that most of the things that I've read have already happened and I can try to get prepared, but it's just, I don't know about what I've got really, if I have ovaries and a uterus and whatnot. Everything's working, but it can't be exactly identical to a woman's. I don't have these innate instincts, or at least I don't know if I do. So I just-" Snape rubbed his eyes again, realizing his fears out loud made his chest hurt and threatened to overwhelm him. "I don't know what to do."
"Well I can tell you now that no woman is really prepared for her first birth." She said softly, "Birthing can't be learned and for the most part, you'll just have to do what you think is right and roll with the punches as they come. Did you think that once in your life you could actually get pregnant? Or that you would actually make it this far?"
Snape didn't answer the question but rather bit his lip hard, looking to the ceiling. It was not the first time he had cried in front of Madame Pomfrey and given she was the one to help him birth his child, it would probably not be the last.
"I just don't want to fail some how," he sniffed loudly. "I don't want to get stuck in a place were I don't know what I'm doing or I can't get him out and It's my own fault."
Tissues were exchanged and for a moment Madame Pomfrey didn't say anything. Snape blew his nose and wiped his eyes the best he could, straightening up a little in his chair. He hadn't cried this much in his whole life, before he was pregnant, he could probably count the times he had cried on one hand in his whole life. It was difficult to be a running faucet at any given moment for any particular reason and it left him exhausted at the end of each day.
"What I want you to worry about now is finding a good place were you can actually give birth." Madame Pomfrey said quietly. "The whole ordeal itself can happen and will happen but for the moment we just need to pick somewhere that would work the best. You can't apparate or floo when you're in labor so you'll need to pick somewhere close, Hogsmede is probably going to be your best bet."
"And when I have that in mind?" Snape murmured, blowing his nose again for good measure.
"Then we can figure out what would be best for you in terms of delivery. Whether you want to opt for a natural vaginal birth, or a water birth, or some sort of Cesarean."
"You could accommodate all of those?"
"If need be." Madame Pomfrey gave a rather unreassuring shrug, "I would quite prefer not to do a Cesarean as I've never done one before, I've only ever birthed two babies before and they were very regular."
Snape felt a slight chill creep down his spine at her words, he knew it would be more then impolite to suggest that he might want someone with more knowledge on the subject to deliver his son, but he also knew that there was no such person he could trust like Madame Pomfrey. They had nearly finished up entirely, Snape had put back on all his day clothes and Madame Pomfrey was halfway out the door before Snape remembered his obligation to Sirius and went flying after her, pleading to get a picture.
Sirius, as though reborn with a greater purpose had taken to fixing up the little room in Grimmauld place for the baby again. Spurred by his last good meeting with Snape and the prospect of actually being able to bring a baby into his home, he spent all his waking hours toiling into the room. The old wallpaper had been completely stripped and the peeling, likely lead laden paint had been sanded out. He left the window open over night in the cold to let out some of the moldy stale smell and finally began the task of making the room safe and inhabitable.
He decided upon a healthy royal red carpet to start with. From what he had been reading, it was the color newborns saw first and Sirius wanted to associate the room with a warm, rich feeling. There was not much he could do to go out and buy carpeting from muggles or wizards alike, so he opted to reuse some lying around, using magic to turn it the particular shade he liked and went through the fibers himself to make sure there wasn't mold or doxy eggs. Once laid, it had a noticeable effect when he walked in the room, and made it feel significantly warmer then the dingy wood floor ever did.
Preferring not to overload the child with the color red however, Sirius painted the walls a calming white, planning to put posters and pictures up for his son to look at, once he had Snape's approval. It took a lot of nerve to not grab all of the posters he had kept from childhood of his favorite quidditch stars and plaster the nursery with them but even he knew that moving images could be quite intimidating and distracting for a baby.
Truthfully, there wasn't much he could pass down to his son that his parent's had not purged of the house when he ran away to James' during his teenage years. Whatever was left around was only there because it had been given to Regulus at some point, or Kreacher had hoarded it away as a Black family treasure.
The other members of the order seemed delighted that Snape had agreed to something that would allow the two men a share in the baby's life, but Sirius suspected it was largely due to the fact that he was not as broody and members felt like they could actually stop by without having to deal with his whinging and whining about being locked up. Tonks was a little more eager to pop in with Remus so they were arranging dinners almost three times a week, and Molly Weasley had been stopping by with second hand clothes for him to pick through. They seemed to have bridged the gap over Arthur's attack and being able to talk about kids and babies, and Sirius was quite glad of her help. While the Weasley's perhaps couldn't offer lots of hand me downs that were free of holes and stains, Molly was quick to give him enriching advice from a seasoned professional.
"The thing to remember is that every baby is different," She explained heartily one evening, just having arrived from the burrow with a large bag of assorted kids clothes and a few boxes of toys to pick through. "You really can start to tell how they're going to be from the get go, but there is plenty of surprises no matter what."
Sirius listened in and out, picking through the bag. It was hard to find newborns clothes for boys as the only ones that looked to be in good condition were mostly for girls. There was also the eclectic mix of toddler clothes filling the bag too, which he didn't care much for just yet.
"Bill and Charlie were just fine, didn't take very long for either of them to sleep through the night." Mrs. Weasley did a little heaving sigh as she remembered Percy, but pressed on, "Everyone was surprised by the twins really, or more like they are now when I tell them about it. Looking at them now, you'd think they were little terrors but they really were the sweetest babies, they were just vying for my attention back and forth everyday." Her eyes darkened a little, sipping her tea. "Then they learn to talk and make complex arrangements, it was all downhill from there."
Sirius pulled out a tiny blue jumper from a roll of raggedy baby blankets. He held it up to the light to inspect.
"Now that was Ron's." Mrs. Weasley said "There are just a couple of things we got gifted from him that held up pretty well. We still used what we could for Ginny, I mean, it doesn't matter much when they're just born right? So long as they're warm."
As much as Molly insisted he take all of the nicer frillier girls onesies, Sirius didn't know what Snape would say if he brought him a bag of secondhand girls clothes. He had to politely refuse her offer. They took to mending some of the really ragged ones as best as they could until Sirius had a bag of reasonable newborn clothes. Every now and then she would pop by with books and toys she thought might work, having somehow found just one more box in her attic that had a couple of old things in them.
"Arthur really will be pleased, he's always insisting we find someone to take these," Molly said after coming upon an extremely battered toy broomstick. "It's just so he can fill the house with more of his muggle rubbish, but if it's a little cleaner..."
But what really made him happy was his last letter from Snape, which had arrived from one of Dumbledore's less conspicuous delivery owls halfway through the week. The envelope was blank as always, the letter itself only contained a few words.
Sirius rolled the parchment piece with his fingers slightly, separating what Snape had written with the picture behind it. He gasped audibly, feeling a lightness in his chest at the sight. His son, Alder, as formed as a real newborn. The picture was a thousand worlds apart from the first and so clear Sirius could see his fingers and toes. His eyes were closed and he was moving very slowly. He was healthy and strong despite all that had happened over the holidays, he looked soft, even pudgy.
Feeling every inch was all Snape thought to write. Sirius chuckled wetly, drying his eyes as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him.
Just a little teaser I guess. Work is work, I've been doing a lot of side projects lately to get extra money coming in, also doing things to get me back in class.
It's been over a year since I started this! I think I'll try to channel the spirit of NaNoWriMo to finish this, optimally before the new year. Sorry if you're all mad at me, I hope you still have the heart to read and review. If not I guess I understand... :O