Okay, someone said that if the main character gets pregnant so early on, the story becomes shitty. I am aware, and, like I said before, I'm feeling quite devious. Hint.

Ms Mr - Bones. Gets me all goosebumpy. Skip down for lyrics, and, warning, I hate the video. It turns a beautifully creepy, disturbing, and thoughtful song into a porn clip. Just.. don't. Not before reading the chap, at least, ok?

Friday morning, Aly woke up alone. Sighing, she thought about her friends, probably already back in Hogwarts. She and Severus would leave sometime on Sunday, she knew, and she wasn't sure if she should be glad or vary. Hogwarts meant friends, but it also meant work, and secrecy.

She had to talk to Severus. Getting up, she padded down the stairs, still sleepy.

He was gone. After checking the second bedroom and the little bench on the balcony, she was sure of it. Shrugging, she got a book from the shelf and settled in his living room chair to read.

He did not return, contrary to what she had expected, in the next hour and a half. Aly was getting nervous. And irritated. Was it really so hard to leave a note?

Giving up on waiting for him before having breakfast, she ate her cereal alone, mentally planning their talk.

Another two hours passed, and now she was worried. More than that, she knew that something was wrong. It was already two in the afternoon. No way Severus would disappear like that. Not without telling her.

On a whim, she reached into the pot of Floo Powder that he kept on top of the fireplace and tossed some of it in, croaking "Hogwarts school of magic, staff quarters, Aly Parton's rooms."

The fireplace burned green. Taking a deep breath, she ran through.

A feeling like falling, and then- soft ashes under her feet. Aly coughed as the green flames faded.

Looking around her living room, she realized that nothing has changed, and she had no idea why she was even here. The logical thing to do would be find the girls, spend time with them. But no. She wanted to check something first.

Walking out of her rooms and locking the door behind her, Aly turned toward Snape's door. A quick peek through the door frame revealed that it was unlocked. She grabbed the handle and slipped in.

Inside, Severus calmly read the Daily Prophet in front of a crackling fireplace.

Hearing her come in, he put down the paper and stood up, annoyed. Then, realizing it was Aly, he deflated. What is she doing here?

"Hi." Aly locked her hands behind her back, looking nervous. And a bit pissed. "Why are you here?"

Severus considered his options. The truth, that he didn't want to face her, that the spite of knowing she was not happy to be carrying his child was hard to take, was out of the question. But he didn't want to lie to her. So, he thought. Evasion it is. "A man can no longer read the news in his own rooms?"

Aly glared. "You know perfectly well what I mean."

"Really."

"Yeah. We need to talk."

Severus drew a deep breath. Evasion hadn't gotten him too far. "About what?" he said, knowing that she thought he didn't know. He wouldn't know, if not for the thin walls of his home.

"Severus, I'm... wait a second. You aren't getting off so easily. Why were you avoiding me?"

"I was not." he lied.

"Were. You can read with equal comfort and silence at Spinner's End as here."

"I needed supplies."

"Are the supplies hidden in the weekly crossword?"

He huffed. "No."

"Then why?"

"I heard... yesterday."

Aly took it in stride, jumping ahead. "So you hid from me."

He knew he would regret it even as he was saying it. But he saw no other options. He knew she despised him as it was, for what he had done to her. He had to admit, it was simply unforgivable.

"In a way." he drawled.

Aly drew a deep breath. Opened her mouth, then closed it.

Severus waited, still as a statue, head cocked to the side. He wanted so badly to go to how things were before, with her chatty and carefree, their meager free time spent reading books, or just talking. Not the crazed marathon of events that the winter holidays had turned into, and the two of them no longer close enough to help each other weather the storm.

"I thought maybe we, you could use some time apart."

"And there I was thinking you loved me." Aly murmured, at the same time bitter and emotionless.

She walked out the door, leaving it open. He didn't stop her. He didn't call her back. He couldn't, because his normally calm and focused mind was, again, whirling with in-connectable thoughts.

They, slowly, merged into one that he found hard to believe. She did not despise him. Never had. And he had just, in her eyes, rejected her and the... baby.

Guessing how stressed she must be and what she was capable of when in a mood, Severus dashed out of his room and down the hall. She was nowhere in sight.

Aly, strangely, was completely calm. Maybe, her most dwelled-on dreams had been broken, more by the assumptions she made as she walked away than anything that he had said. Maybe a logical thing to do would be to scream, cry, threaten. But if she was going to scream, it would be silent.

She just wanted a place where nobody would find her - not that anyone would look, but still. Severus had made it quite clear that he didn't want to see her.

How could he leave me at a time like this?!

You know guys don't like responsibility.

He is not a guy.

Who, then?

A... man.

A swine.

The inner argument ended when Aly's eyes settled on a thick wooden door, propped open. The twisting stairs that lay beyond beckoned to her, a taste of the freedom she knew she would feel at the top of the Astronomy Tower. A way to lose herself in the wind and the white, barren scenery, forget the rest of the world.

Eager, she mounted the stairs two at a time, encouraged as the spiral thinned out, a cold wind rushed past and the light from somewhere up high got brighter and brighter. Finally reaching the cobbled platform at the top, she sighed. A perfectly empty, soulless, but still beautiful way to escape, if only for a little while.

Leaning against the rail as the giant astrological machine quietly creaked behind her, Aly sighed, closing her eyes. The cold didn't bother her -most likely a spell that had been cast, to keep the visitors warm. It had been a long time since she was last up here.

She had loved the tower since she first saw it- a shrine to heights and free thought. Now, she couldn't help but flash to their several midnight astronomy lessons with Severus, some time ago. Those days were gone.

Shaking her head, Aly frowned and opened her eyes. She had come her to get away, not remember the good times. Turning, she was completely unprepared to see him standing just a few inches behind her.

Aly gasped. Backed away. Completely forgetting what was behind her, she was soon pressed against the railing. Her mind still numb, she didn't perceive the way her upper body was about to overweigh her legs and send her down, more than a hundred meters to a marble courtyard.

A gust of wind did her in, and just as Severus reached out to stabilize her, she tipped over the edge. From there on, everything happened in a blur- she wasn't even sure how. But one moment she was falling, the wind rushing past, then there was a cloud of black smoke that smelled, strangely, like him, and then his arms were grasping hers, pulling her back. Aly screamed as the force of his pull rammed her abdomen into the railing, tipping her over - this time to relative safetey on the uneven stone floor.

Aly lay there, panting, in a heap with Snape under her. He caught her pale face in his huge hands and forced her to look him in the eye. "Forgive me. I just assumed... I supposed that you would not want my child, or..." he faltered. Aly's eyes had lost their terrified glaze and now she looked like she might very well kill him. Afraid that she would get up and leave, he twined his legs around her and drew her closer.

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say." Aly murmured, looking into his eyes and leaning down.

Severus opened his mouth. He'd missed her kiss, although it hadn't been all that long. When she drew away, he studied her face and the way that the sunset glinted in her hair, turning it to coppery gold. "Beautiful." he said.

Aly smiled, overly bright. "You too."

Severus grimaced, and Aly relented. "Fine. Handsome. Happy?"

"Quite."

A long while later, they were startled to hear the echo of footsteps on the steps below them, and humming.

"It must be Filch." Severus said, annoyed.

Aly started to get up, but the second she made an attempt, her lower abdomen exploded with pain. She made a kind of "Aaaaahbwheh" sound and lay back down.

Severus remembered the way he had, in a panic, used all of his strength to pull her back to safety... ramming her stomach and hips against the railing. His heart threatened to jump out. "Aly. The baby... is the baby alright?"

Aly's eyes flew open.

She had no idea.

Now, for those of you that know a bit about pregnancy- I know I'm scientifically incorrect in a lot of places, mostly with the time frame and quite a bit with what will happen in later chapters. Excuse my lack of research beforehand, and sadly... what's posted is posted, and correcting it would be confusing. I don't exactly have much experience with the subject.

Some of the lyrics, for you lazy ones:

dig up her bones
but leave the soul alone
boy with a broken soul
heart with a gaping hole
dark twisted fantasy
turned to reality
kissing death
and losing my breath

let her find a way
to a better place
broken dreams and silent screams
empty churches with soulless curses
we found a way
to escape the day

lost in the pages
of self made cages
life slips away
and the ghosts come to play
these are hard times
these are hard times
for dreamers
and love lost believers

man made madness
and the romance of sadness
a beautiful dance
that happened by chance
happened by chance

-Val