Twenty-eight

There was a terrible thunderstorm outside, the wind howling around the castle towers, which were spot-lighted by vicious bolts of lightning every few seconds, squalls of rain beating hard against the windowpanes. In the headmistress's office the heavy curtains were drawn, cutting the room off from the turmoil outside, turning it into an island of warmth and comfort, softly illuminated and warmed by dozens of candles along the walls and the flames of the fireplace.

"Here it is," Minerva McGonagall said, her finger coming to rest on the entry at the bottom of a short, alphabetical list of names. She turned and lifted the paper for the portrait behind her to see.

'John Smith and Vivian Baker, Edinburgh'

The white-haired wizard in the painting adjusted his half-moon spectacles and leaned forward to read the announcement. He nodded slowly. Yes, here it was, one of three marriages contracted in the Scottish Ministry of Magic during the last month.

Raising his head, he sat back in his armchair, sighing deeply.

"Six words looking so inconspicuous, yet carrying so much weight. What a pity that only a few people know about their significance."

Minerva McGonagall folded the newspaper, placed it on her desk and echoed the sigh.

"It's the way he wants it, Albus. You have no idea how much effort it took to convince him that inviting a few friends and Vivian's family was not a waste of time and money."

"But in the end he agreed?"

"Well, Vivian agreed and more or less dragged him along. As it is the custom with many mixed marriages where the Muggle side is to be kept ignorant about the magic of one of the partners, they had two ceremonies; the first one was at the Ministry early on Friday morning with myself and Arthur as witnesses; and later that day they had a second one at a Muggle Registry Office, this time with Diana and Vivian's brother as witnesses."

"Not in the chapel at the convent?"

"No, as much as Diana would have liked it, it was impossible, as neither Vivian nor John are Catholic or were willing to convert to that faith for the occasion; so they preferred a civil ceremony, after which we had the reception in their new house next to the convent. Most of it still resembles a building site, but they had managed to get the downstairs rooms more or less ready in time. There were only about thirty guests, most of them from Vivian's side, and Diana's nuns from the convent helped with the catering, it was all very intimate and pleasant – and I think at the end of the day even Sev... John enjoyed it."

She chuckled at the reminiscences.

"You know, Vivian's parents seem to be extremely pleased with her choice of husband and really have taken John to their hearts. Her mother is a GP and very much interested in John's herbal remedies, and her father is a retired solicitor and hobby historian who respects John as a sensible man, a scientist with a secure job and a regular income, in short, as the ideal son-in-law. Obviously Vivian had fallen for the artist types before and went from one unhappy affair to the next, making her parents think she would never settle down with a family at all."

The old wizard fumbled in the pockets of his robes for a handkerchief and used it to blow his nose vigorously. Then he coughed several times to clear his throat before speaking.

"A wife, a family that accept him into their midst...it is indeed a new life for Severus."

"John," Minerva McGonagall corrected him automatically.

Outside the storm had lost its fury, was reduced to heavy rainfall accompanied by the occasional peal of thunder.

The painted man sighed again. Minerva McGonagall regarded him with a look of compassion.

"He has never talked to you, has he?"

The old man shook his head.

"No, he hasn't. Kingsley offered him my painting at the Ministry, but Severus, sorry, John, said that it was hard enough for him to put up with those wizards who were still alive; he had no intention whatsoever of interacting with those who were dead. He said as far as he knew I had been the meddlesome machinator in the miserable existence he had left behind and didn't want to be reminded of, therefore for him there was absolutely no reason to contact me."

"Meddlesome machinator," the witch repeated thoughtfully, "well, given the way you used him in your plans to vanquish You...Voldemort, this reaction is understandable, isn't it?"

The old man sighed again.

"I do understand him, I really do, but nevertheless I must say I can't help feeling disappointed and sad..."

He took off his glasses and polished them with a large white handkerchief, a far-away expression in his blue eyes.

Minerva McGonagall was sitting quietly, blinking away a few tears of compassion. Outside the rain had stopped and the crackling of the fire remained the only noise in the silence of the room.

"Well..." The man in the portrait put his spectacles back on and focused on the witch in front of him. "It's good that he has found a new life. And perhaps one day...how old is Vivian, by the way?"

Minerva McGonagall frowned.

"In her late thirties, I think. Why do you want to know?"

"She's not too old to have children, even by Muggle standards, is she?"

"No, I don't think so. But...Oh, no...Albus!...talking about 'meddlesome machinators'... I hope you won't...Keep OUT of their life, will you!"

She shook her head vigorously, giving the portrait a look of stern disapproval.

The white-haired wizard smiled back, a twinkle in his blue eyes, his face a picture of innocence.

"Minerva, my dear, what do you take me for! Besides, I'm only the portrait of a poor old, dead wizard with no influence whatsoever in the world of the living."

"Och, aye," she replied, and the two syllables contained a lot of profound Scottish scepticism.

Having finished their monthly meeting about the situation of the order's shelter for the homeless, the two young male volunteers and Sister Mary Angela, who was in charge of the soup kitchen, left the Mother Superior's office, while Sister Mary Claire was staying behind, enjoying a private cup of tea with Mother Mary Barbara and a little pleasant gossip about their favourite topic: John Smith.

"Vivian came to see me yesterday," Sister Mary Claire said into the companionable silence following their first exchange of information.

Mother Mary Barbara looked up in surprise. Vivian rarely entered the convent on her own, sometimes she visited John at his workplace, sometimes she and John had been over for tea, but she had never come to see one of the nuns all by herself...

Sister Mary Claire enjoyed the effect she had created and waited a bit longer before continuing.

"She wanted my opinion as a doctor..."

The older nun's eyes grew wide in alarm.

"Dear me! She isn't ill, is she? Or John?"

Sister Mary Claire shook her head and smiled.

"No, they are fine. She wanted to know if it was advisable to have a first child at 39."

"A first... She's pregnant then! Oh, Hail Mary, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb...A baby! Isn't that marvellous! What did you tell her?

"Well, I told her about the risks, of course, but as she seems to be perfectly healthy there is no reason why she shouldn't go ahead with the pregnancy."

"But of course! What about John? What does he say?"

"John doesn't know yet. Vivian had just learned about the pregnancy and obviously the doctor she'd been to scared her senseless with a long list of everything that can go wrong if the mother is over thirty-five..."

"Nonsense! There are so many older mothers nowadays. I hope Vivian didn't believe the scaremongering old fool of a doctor!"

"That's why she came to me, wanted to have a second opinion. And she really wants to have the baby."

Mother Mary Barbara smiled, satisfied, while settling back in her chair and taking another sip from her teacup.

"A baby! There's nothing more amazing than a newborn child. It's a gift of God. It will be a pleasure for all of us...I'm looking forward to caring for it,..."

Sister Mary Claire, frowning in a mixture of amusement and alarm, cold-heartedly interrupted the Mother Superior's childcare plans.

"Well, I don't think Vivian and John would appreciate having us gushing about the child all over the place and interfering with their parenting."

Grimacing wryly, the older nun put her empty teacup down with a loud thud.

"Oh, well, yes, right, but they'll need a babysitter from time to time, won't they? And as we are living next door..."

Sister Mary Claire suppressed a grin, wondering about the sudden awakening of motherly instincts in the older woman who had never before shown any signs of being overly fond of young children.

Vivian and John were celebrating the end of the decorating work with a cup of tea. Sitting on two folding red plastic chairs amidst a cluster of paint pots, rollers and brushes on the cover-sheeting protecting the floorboards of the spare bedroom, they admired their work, easing their aching arms and backs and gratefully sipping the hot liquid.

John removed his old, paint-splattered baseball-cap and ran a hand through his hair. On a whim he'd had it cut short for their wedding, but now it was growing long again, although still not long enough for being kept in a pony tail.

"I hope I won't have to take a paint brush in hand for the next ten years!" he moaned, his thumbnail scratching at the splashes of dried paint on the cap absent-mindedly.

Although he had discovered a spell that was intended to make the paint rollers do the job all by themselves, this only had resulted in very patchily painted walls and in paint being splashed all over the room, forcing them to return to the traditional Muggle handiwork.

"My sentiments exactly," Vivian laughed, flexing her stiff fingers.

"This house is too big for us. What do we need four spare bedrooms for?" he sighed in mock exasperation.

"Well, you wanted a study, didn't you?" she retorted.

He grunted an affirmative.

"But that still leaves us with three of them."

This time Vivian didn't respond at once. She kept looking at the mug in her hands, biting her lower lip.

After some time she cleared her throat.

"We'll need at least one of them in the near future," she said, still concentrating on her milky tea.

"Sorry?"

John cocked his head, looking at her suspiciously.

"Are we expecting visitors? Some relative of yours? Your whole family was here for the wedding, I can't understand why they would want to visit us again so soon."

Vivian looked up, shaking her head in mock reproach.

"Soon? Our wedding was almost ten months ago. But don't worry, there won't be any visitors; however, 'family' covers it in a way... John – we are going to have a baby."

"What?"

Was it shock, disbelief, fear ...Vivian wasn't sure what exactly he had conveyed with this syllable.

She shrugged helplessly.

"I'm pregnant."

"You're pregnant," he repeated in a flat voice, more like a parrot imitating the sounds than a man understanding their meaning.

"John, don't look at me like this! I don't know what went wrong..."

Putting his mug down next to his chair carefully, he got up and stood in front of her, removed the mug from her paint-encrusted fingers, took her arms and gently pulled her to a standing position, holding her at arm's length, his black eyes searching her face. She felt him draw a deep, shuddering breath.

"What's wrong with having a baby?" he asked softly.

"Wh...what?" she spluttered. "Nothing, I just thought...I feared...oh, John, you are not angry?"

"Angry? No, why on earth should I be angry?"

"Well, I thought..."

His eyes were probing into hers, forcing her to focus on him.

"You thought I detested children, didn't you?"

Abruptly he let her go, turning away with a bitter laugh.

"You know about my miserable childhood and naturally you are informed about the notion that adults who didn't experience love and care in their youth are unable to give them to their own children in turn. Moreover, as we all know and as hundreds of Hogwarts alumni can testify, in my teaching years I was a sarcastic bastard in the classroom. And from all that you deduce that I lack the proper qualifications for being a father, don't you?"

He walked over to the window, instinctively stepping around an abandoned paintbrush on the floor, and stood with his back to the room, staring out into the growing darkness.

"But on the other hand, it all belongs to the past, a past you among others keep telling me I've left behind. In the two years of ignorance about myself I often longed for a family, wondered if I had children somewhere, what it was like to be a father, to raise children, to care for them, to give them love and understanding, to teach them, to help them become confident and happy... I've never dared talk about it, never told you, but this is something I would really like to find out...see if I can do it despite my past. And... I promise I'll try hard and do my best."

He swivelled round.

"Vivian, this is wonderful, it is the most precious gift you could have given to me."

She stared at him, deeply moved and completely at a loss for words. Then, after an endless moment, she decided that the only way of avoiding bursting into tears of compassion was to force herself to some light-hearted reply.

"Children?" she asked in mock indignation. "Hang on, don't become over-enthusiastic, dear husband. Right now I'm still having difficulties trying to come to grips with the idea of having just one child."

He laughed softly, appreciating her unsentimental reaction, crossed the distance between them in three long strides and wrapped his arms around her.

"When?" he asked.

"In March, I'm only 9 weeks gone."

"March," he said, gently placing a kiss next to a small white spot of paint on her forehead, "so we have plenty of time for redecorating the bedroom overlooking the garden. It is the largest one and ideal for a nursery. But we've painted the walls white, definitely too cold a colour for a small child, don't you think?"

Thanks to Ms Rowling for letting me borrow characters and plot.