The Houses Competition (or THC)
House: Slytherin
Class : Charms
Category (Drabble/Standard): Standard
Prompt(s) chosen: [theme] Trying (or succeeding) to understand what somebody is going through, [Emotion] Devastation
Word Count: 2216
Disclaimers/triggers: Post War AU, Established Relationship
Betas: Aya, Dhrish, Hope, TheFrenchPress
Misunderstanding
Bright orange aspen leaves stirred with the breeze and caught the bottom edge of his frock coat, causing the thick material to flap up as he strode toward his destination. These were unfamiliar surroundings, a park he'd never been to before, and that did not sit well with him. His request to be there was already alarming, it wasn't their usual meeting place, which almost made him nervous. The summons had come after a fierce row with Hermione the day before, which may have had something to do with the twisting in his gut.
Severus caught sight of her on a wood-and-iron bench, facing away from him toward a narrow river. Her brown hair whipped back and forth in the wind, making it appear as if it had a life of its own. She had the collar of her coat pulled up high around her neck, but from where he stood, he could not tell if she was still angry with him or not.
He considered himself apt at determining the root of their occasional rows, and whether the fault of their arguments lay with him or not, but in this instance he had been unable to understand why her reaction was so volatile. He had simply remarked that she appeared tired and tense, which had somehow led to a yelling match, followed by her storming out of his home, leaving his head spinning. It had been a baseless argument, almost as if she were fighting him for the sake of fighting. Her point of anger was that he was far too perceptive, that he needed to stop being so, that he didn't need to pay so much attention to her, and that he should have far better uses for his time. It had come out of nowhere, and instinctively, he'd gone on the defensive, asking her precisely how he was supposed to stop paying attention, and he had previously understood that she appreciated his attention to detail when it came to her.
He hoped she'd asked him here to discuss what happened, explain the misunderstanding, and not to put an end to their two-year long relationship. It was far from their worst row, but it was the first one she had ever run away from. Something about this argument was different, Severus could feel it in his chest, but he didn't know why.
Leaves crunched under his boots as he stepped off the path toward her, crossing what would have been green grass in the spring. He was not quiet in his approach, and he was worried when she didn't turn her head to look at him.
"May I sit?" Severus requested as he rounded the bench.
Hermione gave a wordless nod, her honey eyes focused on the cerulean-blue water.
The dread that this was the end to their relationship grew with her pointed avoidance of looking at him, and his sensitivity to rejection reared its ugly head as he took his seat. Severus didn't know what to say or how to remedy what he didn't understand. He glanced at her for answers, watching as she took deep breaths through her nose.
Silence dragged on, the only sounds being the rushing water, the wind, and the occasional bird call. Leaves tumbled and blew around them, the cold wind giving them no peace as it brushed sharply against them.
She sat poised and looking every bit unaffected, her chin up and her shoulders back. But for all her posturing, the red rim of her eyes and the tense way she held her hands in her lap gave away that something greatly affected her.
His patience thinned as the tension grew between them. He could feel her unspoken words weighing on him, and he could not bear another second of being left in the dark. The dread in his gut had evolved into a myriad of emotions, expanding until the point where he could only shallowly breathe.
Shoulders slumped, he perched on the edge of the bench next to her. "Will you please tell me why you are so upset? I cannot make amends if I do not know what I have done."
"You cannot fix this." Her lips shook as she spoke, brown eyes fixed on the water.
"Do not underestimate what I will do to prove myself to you." Objecting against her statement, he shifted his body closer more toward hers.
Her throat contracted and a tear slipped past her eyelash, carving a path along the outside of her cheek. "You misunderstand me; this is not something to be fixed."
Confounded, he growled out his frustration. "Then tell me what it is!"
Her lips dropped into a frown, and her facade looked as if it was about to crumble. Eyelids closed over brown eyes, tears instantly slipping from them.
"Forgive me, I did not come here to fight with you or upset you. I merely want to know what is going on. Why did you get so mad yesterday? What were you unhappy about? I cannot believe it was because I noticed you were weary."
She pulled her hands farther back into her lap, and he could see that they were shaking. Her mouth opened and closed, as if she was struggling to push words past them. Hermione took in a shaky breath, tears streaming down her cheeks uninhibited.
Whatever this was, Severus did not believe it was a simple matter, not if it brought her to this state.
"I'm pregnant," she whispered, her words almost stolen by the wind.
It was as if a bludger had struck him in the gut full force, and all the air left him. "Is—is it mine?" The words left him without thought as he sought to align her admission with his reality.
It was then that she turned him, brown eyes angry as her lips curled back venomously. "No, it is the postman's. Do you have so little trust in me to think I've been unfaithful in our partnership?"
Severus stumbled over himself, the announcement throwing him off balance. "I-I do not know what to think."
"I suppose you wouldn't, would you?" Her expression of anger fled as quickly as it had arrived, a deep sadness etching into the lines around her eyes. Hermione looked from him to her lap, her tears falling from her chin to her clasped hands. "I know how you feel about children. I didn't want to tell you until I could no longer hide it, because I know what it means for us."
Another layer of confusion draped over his floundering mind. "What does it mean for us?"
"You will leave me." A sob escaped her, breaking the last of the mirage that was her self-control.
He gaped at her like a fish out of water.
"Hermione—I—" Words escaped him, every reasonable thing he could think to say vanished as the world around him seemed to shake and tremble with her sobs.
Her brown curls blew across her face as she lifted a hand to wipe away the tears before returning it to her lap.
Severus sat back against the bench, gazing at the same distant spot she had only a moment earlier. He struggled to ratify the information he had just received into his world view. He was going to be a father, and the woman he loved was sure he would leave her for it.
How had she come to this conclusion?
He'd never expressed any fondness for children, that much was true, but when had he given the impression that such an occurrence would result in him walking away from her and everything they had?
Severus' chest felt tight, and he inhaled sharply to try to push back against the sensation of being overwhelmed by his own emotions. The sound of her crying caused a twisting in his heart, knowing now the reason for her tears.
She was pregnant with his child.
It didn't feel real, even as he said it in his mind, but he had no reason to doubt her.
Rubbing his hands slowly along his knees as it set in, he swallowed back the convoluted feelings that attempted to clamber up his throat. He'd been silent for too long. He could only imagine that she took his silence as agreement to her incorrect assumptions, and he had to rectify that before anything else.
"It is you who misunderstands, Hermione." His hand landed gently on her knee, and he slid it up, curling his fingers around her trembling hands. "I would be a fool to ever leave you over this."
She shook her bowed head furiously. "Severus, you don't—I know it will only make you unhappy."
Severus swallowed again, lifting his other hand to lift her chin to make her look at him. His voice felt small; he felt small in the wake of this as he brushed away her tears with his thumb. "How long have you known?"
"Three months," she admitted. Her face was red, not merely from the whipping wind now.
How had he not noticed?
For all her screeching about his keen perception the night before, he felt as if it was woefully lacking if he did not know that the witch he was intimately acquainted with was expecting. "Which makes you pregnant for how long?"
"Four months, give or take a week." Hermione closed her eyes under his gaze, her chin resting in his hand as she sucked in an abrupt breath from her crying.
The melancholy in her expression was heavy, and without needing to dig deeper, he could see that she truly expected him to admonish her and push her away from him. His grip on her vibrating hands tightened as he struggled to take all the information in and improvise a plan. Severus didn't have enough information. Things would have to change, they would need to make arrangements, and he now knew at least how much time there was to get it done. "That gives us five months to prepare."
"Severus," she cried out, her hands lifting from under his hand and grabbing his arm.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't want me here with you and I will walk away, Hermione." He silenced her protest. When she said nothing, her wide eyes searching his, he let out a deep soul-rending sigh. He pleaded with her, his other hand cupping her other cheek so he could hold her hands in his face. "Otherwise, let me prove your misconceptions wrong."
"You-hate-children!" she stuttered, her sobbing renewed as her hands grasped his wrists.
He grimaced at her exclamation, nodding. "Other people's spoiled spawn make my blood curdle and my skin itch, this is true. I cannot say for certain how I would feel about my own, but I do know I would not hate them. I want to try."
"I won't force you to change who you are. I can do this on my own," Hermione whimpered miserably, as if the words hurt her to say more than they hurt him to hear.
Severus pressed his forehead to hers, a wave of his own emotions striving to break through his iron control. "Do you want to?"
"No." The word was spoken barely a whisper, and if he'd not been so close, he might not have heard it.
"Then you won't." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, letting her face go to pull her into his chest. "I'm not going anywhere."
The tension in the air broke like a balloon popping, leaving a vacuum behind which his uncertain emotions filled.
She did not resist his embrace, instead colliding with him so forcefully that a burst of air was knocked from his lungs. Hermione broke into a wail muffled by the wool of his coat as she hugged him so tightly that he wondered where the strength came from.
Severus held her tightly, feeling her tears and emotions rush over him like the rushing of the river they sat in front of. If he was not mindful, he would be swept away in them, and this was neither the time nor the place to allow such a thing to happen. He breathed in steady breaths, hoping his calm exterior would help to soothe her as he stared out over the water.
The wind slowed, no longer whipping their hair around but softly rolling over them. The temperature had dropped in the short time they sat there, and Hermione shivered, her tears now sniffles.
Leaning back from her, he offered in a whisper, "Let's go back to your flat, get out of the cold, and we can discuss this over something warm to drink, hmm?"
"Okay," she croaked, leaning back from him to wipe her red eyes. "I'm sure you've a lot of questions."
"Indeed," Severus agreed, getting to his feet and offering his hand to pull her to her own. "And you have many concerns."
"I do." Hermione put her hand in his, and he drew her up to his side, sliding her arm through his. "I cannot believe you are staying."
"Just be with me, Hermione, we will figure out the details as we go," Severus promised as he led her through the scattered leaves, away from the cerulean-blue river; the only other witness to her world-shaking revelation.