Chapter 47

Spinner's End by the Sea

October 9th 1997

I am in my gloomy bedroom in the house at Spinner's End, except this is not Spinner's End. I do not hear the bustles of the muggle neighbor, but the rolling splashes of waves. I run to the small window.

Where Spinner's End should be, there is a sandy beach and a blue ocean. The sun is shining and seagulls float at their ease in the clear sky. And I know I am dreaming and if this is a dream…

I rush to the stairs. "Severus!" I call out. "Severus!"

I fly down the stairs and once I reach the landing I see him. He is sitting in his armchair with the Daily Prophet held up in front of him. He roughly sets it aside as I approach him, revealing his beautiful scowl.

"What do you mean by creating all this noise?" He asks with annoyance.

"Oh!" I smile and run towards him and sit on his lap.

"What are you doing?" he hisses.

"Just don't question it," I tell him. "This is my dream." I wrap my arms around his neck and give him a squeeze.

He cringes and I get off his lap.

"Sorry," I said ashamed of my rejection.

"No, no it is not that," says Severus roughly. He places a weary hand to his neck, where I just notice he is wrapped in bandages.

"The snake bits," I say with surprise.

"Yes," replies Severus bitterly, "The snake bit."

"It could have been this way," says my dream self. I bravely kiss Severus on the cheek, which turns warm with my touch. I then sit at his feet.

"Any interesting news?" I ask as he picks up the paper once more.

He rolls his eyes at me. "No," he says dryly and puts the paper down again.

He pulls his wand out of his robes and a book comes flying off a shelf. It is Hamlet.

I shift and rest my head on the arm of the chair.

Severus opens the book and looks down at me. "Shall we start where we left off?" he asks me.

"Wait," I say, looking up at him with confusion, "You are going to read to me?"

"Yes," he says his eyebrows knitting together. "Do you want to finish the play? Or would you rather not? People your age have such little taste in good literature; it is really quite appalling."

"No, No," I tell him. "I like this play, please read it."

So he did, but since this is a dream and I do not have Hamlet memorized every line Severus reads is "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark" or "to be or not to be." But it is by far the best rendition of this Shakespearian work I had ever heard.

Severus reads the last page, "To be or not to be," he concludes and closes the book.

Hamlet floats gracefully back to its spot on the shelf.

"Did you like it?" Severus asks me. His personality is more relaxed and he seems at ease. There is movement and light behind his dark eyes, everything I would have hoped to see if events had been altered.

"I loved it," I answer.

"Good," he says.

"Severus," I say as I turn to face away from him, leaning my back against his legs.

"Yes, Alex," he replies.

I smile slightly.

"Are you happy?" I ask him.

"Yes," Severus says.

"Do you love me?" I ask.

"Yes," he assures me.

"Will you always?" I ask.

"Always," he tells me.

My hand grabs on to my stomach as I feel a sudden sharp pain.

I hear a baby crying up stairs. Its voice echoes through the house.

I stand and look at Severus. He seems completely unfazed by the baby's crying.

Severus picks up his paper again and begins to read it again.

"Aren't you going to take care of that?" Severus asks passively.

"Uh," I say. "Yes. I suppose I have to," except I did not want to go. I feel fear and another sharp pain in my stomach.

I walk to the stairs slowly. I feel nerves creeping in the pit of my stomach and then more pain. The crying becomes louder as I walk upwards. The stairs seem steeper than I remembered them being and as I climb higher and higher my surroundings get darker.

Though, I ascend slowly I reach the upstairs landing in no time. I shiver, but not because I am cold. The floorboards creek and eerie shadows line the walls. The once tiny hallway of the second story of this house is now stretched, long and narrow.

I stop and listen to the see where the baby's cry is coming from.

It comes from behind the door at the end of the hall.

My legs do not want to move but my mind tells me that I must; so I go. I start along the hall. As I approach the door, the hall becomes narrower, now I must walk sideways with wall against my back and wall nearly touching my nose.

I am at the door. Pressed against the two walls and the door; I feel like I am enclosed in a coffin and my breathing sharpens.

I struggle to open the door with my little arm room, my hand slips on the knob but I finally manage to open it and step inside.

Once in the room, I am relieved to see that it is wide, yet somehow I want to go back into the claustrophobic hall. The room has the same grey wall paint as the rest of the house and it is completely empty except for a crib in the middle of the room.

I notice that the baby has stopped crying. I am tempted to turn back but I know I have to check on my child.

I feel another sharp pain in my abdomen.

I approach the crib.

It seems to take me a century to walk the short distance. But once there I look down at my baby…

My whole body tenses up and again my stomach aches as if it is being twisted into a knot.

I scream as I see its red eyes looking up at me from the crib. It looks so knowing, as if it is trying to see into my soul. Its surprisingly long fingered hands reach for my throat. Its hands grab hold of me with little trouble; its arms seemed to stretch. Its white hands on my bare neck are like ice. The thing pulls me in towards it by my throat; I am forced to look at it straight in the face; my stomach gives a horrible lurch; my feet are off the ground as I hang limply over the cribs metal bars. I am afraid but I mustn't be; this is my baby. But it is evil! I can't breathe; it is going to choke me to death.

"Severus," I try to yell but I don't have enough breathe in me to make much sound. "Severus," I try again uselessly.

My white, red-eyed baby opens its mouth and speaks to me in hisses. It is just like its father.

There was a loud knocking on the wall.

"Will you keep it down!" shouted the angry voice of my neighbor in the apartment next to me.

I remembered I could breathe again. This was not the first time I had been awoken by Mr. Room 114. Who knows what kind of yelling fun I had been entertaining him with tonight.

I felt a shiver as the memory of the dream returned to me.

"It was only a dream," I whispered to myself for the trillionth time in months. But suddenly I felt the dream again in my stomach, a horribly sharp pain. My shaking arms lifted my fully pregnant self into a sitting position and the pain came again. Then I felt warm wetness under my legs, which quickly soaked into my sheets. My water broke.