Song for this chapter: Riverside by Agnes Obel
SPOV
In my distraction after Hermione left to tell the Weasleys about our exciting news I did not pay particular care to dressing, and I immediately noted the surprise on Minerva's face when she answered my knocking at her office door. I looked down and smirked. I didn't look particularly strange in my slacks and white shirt, but to someone who had not seen me out of my frock coat in twenty years my appearance was likely to be very different. I couldn't help but chuckle as I followed her into her office.
"You must be coming to herald the end of the world," she chuckled as she slid into the seat behind her desk. "What with your laughing, and the fact that I haven't seen you in such a state of undress since your first year of school where you gradually learned to like the tie in your uniform."
My hand went instinctively to my throat to touch where the tie would have been and I laughed again. How well she remembered me! I folded my hands in my lap and let the shock of a second bit of laughter fade from her face before I began to speak.
"Not the end of the world at all," I assured her. "But it is the beginning of an entirely different one."
"You have news," she said shrewdly with her smile growing as she tried to read me even though she know she would not be able to.
"I do," I nodded with the hint of another smile. "Hermione is with child."
There was a beat of silence where the news seemed to settle upon her, and then to look at her face was akin to watching the sun rise over the mountains.
"Oh Severus," she chirped as the smiling face was broken by the tremble of a lower lip and happy tears springing to her eyes. "I never dare to daydream of you as a father, and Hermione as a mother! I am so happy for the both of you."
"Thank you Minerva," I said with a dip of the head. "So many things will change now, but I could not be happier."
"So what sort of changes should I expect as your boss?" she asked, her excitement hardly diminished.
"Hermione and I need to have an earnest discussion about it, but I am certain you are losing at least her as she expressed that she does not wish to be a working mother," I explained while I wondered at what I really wanted. "I am torn between wanting to raise my child outside of the castle, and wanting to honor the position I have taken as deputy headmaster."
"Well you certainly need to discuss it with your wife," Minerva said quietly. "But I might point out, with the headmistress in residence it would not be completely out of the question for the deputy to retire off the castle grounds most evenings."
"That will certainly be taken into consideration," I said with a nod. "I need to go collect a certain book from Poppy, if you'll excuse me."
HPOV
Telling Minerva that I planned to leave was harder than I thought it would be. I had never been a student to get called to the head's office for trouble, but I imagined I understood what that might feel like as I made my way up to her office for that meeting. Severus had assured me that our decision would be taken well, but I was still terrible nervous.
"Good morning Hermione," Minerva said as I took my seat before her desk. "Or would you prefer I call you Mrs. Snape?"
"I still have not begun having my students call me that," I chuckled. "I'd allow you to call me that of course, but I prefer not to be so formal with you."
"Of course," she said with a smile. "I just love to think about the two of you married, and with a baby on the way no less. Perhaps it is age, but I find myself acting more like an excited grandmother than an employer."
"You aren't nearly old enough to seem a grandmother to me," I laughed. "I hope you will still feel so doting after this conversation though."
I could see that my words seemed to tell her my decision already, but she continued to smile and wait for me to actually say it.
"Severus and I have talked a lot about it," I said finally, battling against my nerves. "And neither of us want to raise our child strictly within the castle. We want to make a home for him or her. I personally want to be at home with our child until it is time for him or her to attend Hogwarts."
"I bet you can't wait until you can say one gender of the other," Minerva chuckled, surprising me with what she chose to respond with.
"You aren't upset?" I asked her, honestly surprised.
"No, I've already begun picturing you at home with the baby," Minerva beamed. "Just that image makes the search for your replacement bearable."
"Give me some time on that, I have a person in mind but I need to feel them out to see if they're interested," I told her quietly.
"Well I look forward to hearing it," Minerva said as she inclined her head toward the door, and I turned to see that Severus was standing in the doorway waiting for me. "I believe you are needed elsewhere my dear."
"Ah yes, it's doctor time," I chuckled. "OBGYN today isn't it love?"
"It is indeed," he said with a nod. "We need to leave now if we are going to catch a cab from the Leaky Cauldron in time."
"I thought apparition was safe this early in the pregnancy," Minerva said, seemingly genuinely concerned.
"It is, but considering how delicate pregnancies can be we thought it be not to risk it," Severus said quietly, and I wondered if Minerva knew about Ginny when her face darkened slightly.
"Well travel safely," Minerva said in closing. "See you tonight at the staff meeting."
I kept nervously waiting for the morning sickness and the crazy mood swings, but blessedly they never seemed to come. Sure my mood was slightly more volatile, but I had yet to burst into tears over the morning paper or rage at Severus for something trivial. I found that I was hungry more often, but it wasn't for strange foods other than the occasional craving for liver which Severus seems to find absolutely revolting. I was occasionally more tired, but mostly I just felt happy and energetic and somehow buoyed up by the fact that there was a child growing inside of me.
That energy carried over into carrying out plans. I turned in a tearful notice of my intent to leave the school, but followed it with a glowing review to Agatha Johnston, the seventh year I suggested as my replacement in the fall. The bubbly happiness that I felt seemed to be nearly infectious, to the point that Severus was actually openly smiling even in the presence of the real estate agent who took us to look at the house in Ottery St. Catchpole. The excitement was at such a height that I wasn't entirely sure who had told the woman we would take the house first.
"Do you think you will hate it?" I asked Severus as we enlarged the boxes we had brought with us and began depositing them in their corresponding rooms. "Living so close to Molly and Arthur."
"No, I find them at least tolerable," he chuckled darkly. "Besides we are not moving into the Burrow are we?"
"No we aren't," I smiled as I set my box of dishes on the kitchen counter. "Do you want to name our house as well?"
"No," he said with a sense of finality but without a sense of malice. "I think the address is a suitable moniker."
The end of the year seemed to come very quickly, but the days seemed longer at the same time. I had started researching baby James's heart condition, and it had landed me with daily letter's from Ginny. Now that she'd been convinced to pursue muggle medicine, much to Molly's dismay, she wanted all of the information she could get her hands on. Apparently she trusted the information coming from me better than she did from her doctor, so I had Harry owl me all of the information they had been given, and I simply told her the same things. In order to send to information on in my own handwriting I had to read the information Harry was sending me, and it was absolutely terrifying.
"Severus come here," I shouted from where I was snuggled up in the couch with a blanket and a book on congenital heart defects.
"Yes?" he said, stepping out of the bathroom, still drying his hair with a towel and momentarily distracting me clad in only a pair of sweat pants.
"How in the world am I supposed to tell Ginny that in cases of Hypoplastic left heart syndrome the child is most often dead within the first few weeks of life?" I moaned, tossing the book on the ground. "Going the muggle route was supposed to help her, but even with open heart surgery the odd only get 25% better."
"I think you'll need to sugar coat it a bit," he said, sitting on the lip of the stairs that led down to my chair and looking pensive. "She needs to stay as calm as possible to help the baby, but you can't keep the facts from her. Present the option of heart surgery as helping the odds without actually telling her how bad the odds are."
"How can you think about this so clearly," I asked him softly, picking up my quill to begin following his instructions. "I read this stuff and I just get so… I don't even know the right word for it honestly."
"Well for one thing I don't have to battle my hormones while reading about sick babies, but the reason I am able to keep my cool is by thinking of it only as statistics, not allowing it to be real," he said as he sat the towel across his lap and picked up the book from the floor. "I wish you'd let me write these letters instead. I don't like you getting so upset because of this."
"Ginny only listens to me, for some strange reason," I grumbled.
"You are intelligent and from a muggle background, not to mention and old friend." Severus sighed. "It makes perfect sense that she would trust you when scared, rather than some muggle doctor that she had never met until she was in this terrifying situation."
"Which is why I have to send her this information Severus," I sighed, leaning my head against the chair back.
"I can learn to forge your handwriting," Severus offered lightly. "I'm actually rather good at that."
"If the reading gets much worse I'll let you," I promised. "I'm okay right now though."
"Will you at least leave it until tomorrow afternoon," he asked somewhat grumpily as he reached out to steal my parchment and quill. "We've got appointments with both doctors and they're early. You should rest."
"Ok," I sighed, letting him pull me up out of the chair. "We get to learn the gender tomorrow don't we?"
"Yes we do," Severus said, a smile creeping onto his face.
I had gone to bed with hopeful dreams about baby boys and baby girls, wondering which one I was supposed to call my own. It had been a warm and fuzzy place to rest in, but I found those feelings quickly bleeding away in the light of day. In the light of day, things seemed to be tipping on to their side, becoming hard to see properly.
"I'm not saying that you need to panic, or really even worry," the healer said, perhaps trying to coax some color back into my skin. "It could mean any number of things."
"Are we having a squib?" I asked, glad that my voice did not betray me. "Is that why I don't feel any sort of connection? Is that why no magical signature is registering on the tests?"
"It's a possibility," the healer said gravely, and to her it seemed that was a death sentence.
"That's not so bad is it Severus," I said turning to look at Severus who was holding my hand. "We could raise a child who doesn't have magic couldn't we?"
"Of course we could," he said in a deep voice, looking up from our entwined hands to meet my eyes. "Magic is superfluous, we do not need it."
It touched my heart to hear him say that, after the battles we had over my own magic not so long ago. It showed the depth of his love for our child that he would give up something that was so important to him entirely if it would help our child. I glowed with love for him, almost brightly enough to damper the despair that I felt at what our child would miss out on.
"Is there anything we need to do to protect the baby," Severus asked, drawing me out of my reverie. "Is there a danger without the magical protection a baby is supposed to garner from its mother?"
"No Hermione's body will still protect your child," the healer said confidently. "Right now you just need to think about changes that might need to be made for the future."
"You still haven't told us the gender," I pointed out when she began to step away from the bed.
"There is an incompatibility between your body and the babies due to the presence of magic in only one person," she said carefully. "While this does not have an adverse effect on the babies health, it does create a barrier that does not allow me to see into your uterus properly. I am unable to determine the sex at this point. Perhaps at the next appointment."
I nodded, a bit disappointed but not devastated that I would have to wait.
"Set up an appointment before you leave," she instructed. "I want to see you again in a couple weeks."
This time it was Severus who nodded, and she left us. He helped me up, and I pretended not to notice that he was handling me more delicately than normal. With his aid I changed from the green and white hospital gown back into my track pants and sweater. It wasn't the most professional outfit, but I was officially big enough now that I needed to go shopping for some maternity clothes, especially if we weren't going to be doing magic around the baby.
"Do you want to give up magic entirely," Severus asked as he produced my shoes from under the bed. "Or just around the baby?"
"I don't know honestly," I mused as I slid my shoes on. "We should think about it before we make up our minds. I think I will avoid using magic during the pregnancy at least. I don't want to increase the incompatibility or anything."
"I sincerely hope that was a poor word choice on her part," Severus grumbled as he took my arm in his and lead me out of the ward. "I suppose we'll find out in just a bit though won't we?"
I must have zoned out while trying to process what we had heard. One minute I was walking out of the ward in St. Mungos and the next I was propped up on the muggle exam table, already dressed in the paper gown with Severus holding my hand once more.
"The doctor should be in shortly," Severus told me quietly. "How are you doing?"
"Ok I guess," I sighed, squeezing his hand. "It's a lot to take in I guess."
"It's going to be just fine," Severus assured me softly, just as the door opened to reveal our doctor rolling in the ultrasound machine.
"Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Snape," she said with a beaming smile. "Are you ready to find out your babies gender today?"
"Yes," I smiled, hoping that we really would find that out.
"How have things been?" she asked as she set up beside the bed, taking up residence on her soul. "Still feeling alright?"
"No vomiting, no drastic mood swings, not even terribly tired anymore," I assured her with a smile. "If I weren't putting on weight so quickly I'd think I wasn't even pregnant."
"Oh you're definitely pregnant," she chuckled as she positioned the gown around my rounded belly and gave me a look that was meant to remind me that the gel was cold before she squirted a bit of it on to my skin. "You'll see the baby in just a minute and that will erase your doubts."
Severus chuckled, but then turned his eyes toward the monitor that was still showing a black screen. The room seemed to fill with a wooshing sound, as the doctor began moving her mechanical wand over my stomach, and eventually we were gifted with the sound of a beating heart.
"There's the heartbeat," the doctor said with a smile in her voice as she focused on the monitor while moving the wand around more. "In a second I should have a good image… just need to get the right angle so you can see the—"
She stopped talking altogether and leaned in to look closer at the monitor. I glanced at her, and noticed almost instantly that the smile had left her face, and her eyes were squinted in concentration. I began to grow alarmed when she reached out to freeze the image, but quickly turned the machine so only she could see the screen.
"What is it?" Severus asked, and there was venom clearly present in his voice as he saw her attempt to hide whatever it was she was seeing on the monitor.
"Well, your baby is a girl," she said breathlessly, and I felt no joy at this information due to her bloodless face that she was quickly trying to make look professional. "But it appears that she has anencephaly."
"What is that?" I asked, unfamiliar with the term.
"It's a condition where neural tubes don't close properly," she explained, her panic draining away as she went into explanation mode, regurgitating facts to us. "It means that the forebrain does not develop. Other than essentially the stem, there is no brain."
The air seemed to leak out of the room as her explanation sunk in, though I was well aware that the beeping on the monitor increased as my racing heart affected our daughter.
"She lives and grows," the doctor went on, drawing my focus away from the way Severus was gripping my hand tightly. "But no conscious will develop as the part of the brain that controls higher-level cognition will never exist. It is very rare that Anencephalic babies survive birth without a skull to protect them through the transition. Those who survive the ordeal often die within a few hours."
"How does this even happen?" Severus asked, his voice almost guttural, my eyes snapping to his and seeing that they were drowning in pain.
"It is a genetic condition, very rare." She answered almost robotically. "There is debate to the true cause. It could be hereditary, sometimes medications the mother has to take for medical conditions can cause it, it has been speculated that lead poisoning can be a cause. It's impossible to know what has cause this in Mrs. Snape, though we can rule out medication as she does not have epilepsy."
"Does it hurt her?" I asked in a strangled voice of my own, feeling my eyes sting with tears that wished to fall. "Does she ache from her damaged head?"
"No," Dr. Neely breathed. "These babies are usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. There are reflexive movements such as breathing, and responding to sounds, but that is as close to cognizant as your child will come."
"What is the recommended course of action?" Severus asked, and his voice sounded hard and full of ice.
"It comes down to your preference," she said tightly. "Many parents choose to abort such a baby. The others allow the baby to be born and spend the short time they might get with the child before they pass."
"I think we should abort," Severus said stiffly, and what little air remained in my lungs was crushed out of me.
"How can you even say that," I gasped at him, immediately pulling the light blanket over me and protectively shielding my stomach. "This is our daughter."
"Our daughter is not alive within her own body," Severus ground out, his eyes tight as he met mine. "It would be wrong to put her through the ordeal of birth only to die in the end anyway."
"Letting her die naturally and brutally murdering her are not the same thing," I shouted at him, anger burning through me and keeping the tears at bay. "I will not kill her."
"This isn't a decision that has to be made today," Dr. Neely interjected. "It's clearly something that the two of you need to think about and discuss, why don't we hold off on any sort of decision until our next appointment? Say a week from now?"
"Perhaps that's best," Severus said stiffly as he stood from his seat and began collecting my clothes for me. "We shall set up an appointment with your receptionist."
"You can call me anytime if you need to talk about this," she said as she turned off her machine and began to push it toward the door. "Either of you."
And just like that she had left us alone, and I lost my battle with my tears. The anger was gone and all I felt was misery as I cried, and wiped the gel that I now hated from my stomach. I could feel that Severus was upset but I had no comfort to offer him. I was drowning in my own pit of despair.
"Let me help you," he said quietly as he began removing my hospital gown.
His hand brushed against my stomach, and I felt his emotional tremble before he made a choking sound, and suddenly he was on his knees with his face pressed to my stomach, sobbing uncontrollably. I ran my fingers through his hair in an effort to soothe him, but I cried just as desperately. I fell apart at the realization that I had been spared the negatives of pregnancy because my baby wasn't developing like it should be. Why should I be grateful to escape morning sickness if it meant that my daughter would never be whole?
"I would kill Lucius again if I could," Severus huffed when his tears finally stopped and he began to help me dress once more.
"What?" I questioned, nearly delirious with my grief and unable to understand what he was saying to me.
"You did have lead poisoning before," Severus said gruffly. "From his knife wounds, and apparently when I healed you I did not cure that entirely, and now our child has no brain."
My tears were renewed at the realization that this was my fault. My body had done this to our child. I hurt for my guilt, but I also hurt for the implicit accusation in my husband's words. I felt perhaps I should apologize to him but my throat seemed to have closed, unable to allow any sound that was not a painful cry.
"I'll have to walk us out of here so we do not break any statutes, but then I will apparate us back to Hogwarts," Severus whispered softly into my ear, and I couldn't understand why he was being nice to me when he must hate me so. "I'll get your safely home soon, I promise."
I nodded my head dumbly, and stood. He tucked me under his arm, and I buried my face in his chest when I was unable to stop the tears. I clutched him tightly and let him lead me where ever he chose to, and I barely registered the world around me. I felt the change when we stepped outside as a slight breeze ruffled my hair, and then I knew we were apparating because of the pressure. My tears grew stronger when it dawned on me that Severus was no longer taking precautions with our child because he saw no point.
I felt the heat of a warm summer day at Hogwarts, and I tried to still my tears but it was no use. I manage to quiet my voice, but they still streamed down my face. The flowed stronger when I saw the children who were enjoying a weekend break from studying from exams running about on the grounds. They were so happy, and it felt as if their laughter actually pierced my heart. They could never understand the kind of pain that I felt right now, and I hoped they never would.
I felt magic ripple over me, and I knew instinctively that Severus had cast a notice-me-not charm on us as we began to cross the grounds. I felt an impulse to go out into the lake that I doubted I could explain to anyone. I was devastated, and I felt hopeless, and alone, and somehow I just felt that the water would make me feel better. It wasn't something I could really even explain to myself, let alone anyone who had never felt the way that I felt right now. Ginny perhaps could understand what I felt, but even she had a chance of knowing her son. She even knew him in some ways already, because her Son had a mind that she could connect to.
It was laughable that I had pitied Ginny. I couldn't even bring myself to imagine what she might think to hear this development in my pregnancy. I didn't think I could tell her. I didn't think I could tell anyone. I wasn't even sure I could have another conversation about this with Severus. I just wanted to hide away and pretend it was not real.
Some part of Severus must have understood what I was feeling, because he took me directly to our chambers and tucked me into bed. He wrapped the blankets tightly around me before he lay down on top of them and held me tightly to him. We lay there together in the darkness, not having bothered to light a lamp, and the silence was broken only by the sound of our tears. I felt there should be more sound as the world ended, and yet silence seemed somehow fitting as well.
