DISCLAIMER:

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books,
Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.



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"Please tell me?" She begged, sitting up and beseeching the older woman in a husky whisper. "Please?" She clutched onto Pomfrey's sleeve with a pathetic look on her face. She tried to make it sound funny and impossible, but it came out flat and serious. "Snape did not have sex with me while we were both snakes?"

The Mediwitch tried to look convincing as she lied, "I'll be able to tell you that in a minute my dear." Of course she knew the answer already, but she was buying time and there was something very important she needed to ascertain first. Poising her wand over Hermione's abdomen she slowly swept it down the girl's torso.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked, her eyes growing large.

"Routine check, my dear." Pomfrey smiled as she paused over the girl's hammering heart. Dear Merlin, the girl was tachycardic and little wonder the atmosphere was dense enough to cut with a knife. "It will give me your vitals – pulse, blood pressure and ascertain the state of most of your major organs-" The wand moved lower, "Heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestine, colon… oh."

"Oh?" Hermione repeated.

"Oh?" she heard Dumbledore murmur and could almost see the sulphurous glower from Snape burning two holes in the curtains. Everyone knew that in the 'laypersons guide to medicine' 'Oh' was a very bad prognostic indicator.

"Oh… look at the time it's nearly four o'clock in the morning." Pomfrey said cheerfully - a little too cheerfully. Hermione's heart felt it was about to jump out of her chest and bounce about the room like an inside out bunny. Oh no, it was something bad. She must be dying!

"Accio blanket!" Pomfrey flicked her wand away into her apron pocket and began to hum tunelessly.

The hairs on Hermione's arm stood up and a chill settled in her stomach. "Oh?" She repeated, her throat tight while her vision swam with white and black spots.

A folded soft cotton twill blanket floated through the curtains the older witch snatched it up and draped it over her knees with a purposefully tap on her knees. "It will be alright Hermione."

"What is it?" She pleaded.

Pomfrey's humming grew louder and more intense. "There!" She ignored her question, smiling tightly as she tucked her in. "Try to get some rest." Her voice wavered as she parted the curtains. "I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight."

What? As if she could sleep! "Did I- we?" Hermione called before the woman bustled out of sight.

"All in good time Hermione. I have to finalise the results." Pomfrey replied not unsympathetically and closed the curtains with a dramatic swirl.

Beyond the curtains Hermione could hear the Mediwitch shush Dumbledore and Snape with a perfunctory hiss. Silently the older woman led the two men away.

"Goodnight."  Hermione called out as they moved past her bed, but got no reply. Clutching the blanket to her chin, she sank down to the pillow and stared at the shadowed ceiling. For the next hour she watched the light seep in and the shadows fade, fighting sleep she wondered what the significance of an "oh" could be.

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"You want me to what?"


"To tell Hermione?" Pomfrey calmly repeated.


Snape stood up and paced the length of Dumbledore's office. It was nearly dawn and his bad temper matched his level of exhaustion. "Do you have any idea what you are asking? She's a teenage girl! She thinks sex is love and that love is some puerile pop song with insufferable fluffy animals!"

"You underestimate Hermione. She is not your typical adolescent. Give her a little more credit please."

Snape crossed his arms and stopped his incessant pacing. His stillness did not last long. He grew so agitated he had to stalk back and forth giving off vibes of jittery magic and intense hostility. He could barely mutter. "Give a Gryffindor credit they become Gilderoy Lockhart!"

"You got her pregnant Snape, you should tell her."

"So you say," Snape pointed an accusatory sneer at Pomfrey, "but where's the proof?"

"If Minerva were here you would know better! Hermione Granger is the least likely person in the entire school to fall pregnant. She has too much at stake." As if proving her point the mediwitch angrily flicked her wand and conjured up an image of Hermione's uterus.

"Poppy please." Dumbledore's gasp of surprise and Snape's hiccough of revulsion punctuated the air, but she ignored them as she concentrated on what she was seeing instead.

Dumbledore shielded his eyes from the impromptu female anatomy lesson. "Some of us have delicate stomachs. Jelly baby, Severus?"

"Ugh no." Snape stared at the three-dimensional image of the internal organ transfixed. "Hold on," He blinked away, reconsidered the Head Masters offer and asked. "Are they real babies?"

"Oh grow up!" Pomfrey fumed. "No matter how much you confirmed old bachelors would like to believe babies are found under cabbages they are not vegetables! They are flesh and blood." She focused on the pulsating red and shiny organ, manipulating the image so that she could see inside and concentrate on the four tiny bumps buried into a convoluted and engorged endometrium.

"This is Miss Granger's womb and those-" She jabbed a finger at the bumps bringing the attention of the men back to her, "Are embryos." She zoomed in and the image passed inside to reveal a tiny wormlike form, again ignoring the squeamish sounds the Head Master made.

"Your babies." She glared at Snape as he dug out a green jelly baby from a small paper bag, snapping the image away with a sharp gesture. "Stop being an ass."


"Or asp as the case maybe." Dumbledore chuckled more to himself than anyone else and happily chewed on an orange sweet making soft appreciative noises.

Snape and Pomfrey glared at each other, then stared at the Head Master with tight-mouthed sour faces.

Dumbledore stopped chewing at their look and began to sagely stroke his beard. "Ah yes." Her swallowed and cleared his throat. "Tell her, Severus." To emphasise his sobriety he pulled down his white eyebrows and gruffly commanded. "It's the decent thing to do."


"Why should I?" The Potions Master sniffed. "I renounce any interest in those…" He screwed up his nose and sneered, "things."

"Babies." Pomfrey emphasised.

"Parasitic blastocysts."


"Children."


"They don't even have a primitive spinal column woman!"

"Your progeny have neural tubes and are over a week old."

"They can be one month, one year old I still have no interest in them." He folded his arms and walked away.


"Severus?" Dumbledore warned. "Don't speak too soon."

Snape gave the old wizard a hawkish look. "What do you know about children? All I know is they are best cooked over a low flame."

"Your own children are different from those your classes, Severus. You can't flambé them."

"So Filch can't dust off the barbeque?"

Pomfrey almost stomped her foot. "That's enough! You will tell Hermione!"

"It's for the best Severus." Dumbledore coddled the man.


Snape reluctantly conceded. "Very well. Yes, I will tell her, but-" He smiled dangerously at his colleagues, "only if you come with me."

"Oh we wouldn't miss it for the world." Dumbledore clapped his hands together and rose from his seat.

"Dear Merlin."

"Albus, it's four twenty three in the morning!"

The Head Master paused and sulked. He felt the lack of enthusiasm and sank back down into his chair. "Meet me at the infirmary at seven?"


Pomfrey nodded while Snape whirled about and headed for the door.

"Oh Severus," Dumbledore's voice stopped the Potions Master before he could leave. "I seemed to have misplaced a bag of liquorice all sorts in your class, if you find the bag could you return it to me? I think I left it in your storeroom?"

"My storeroom?" Snape's shoulders stiffened, followed by an incomprehensible grumble of defeat.

"By the way, the weather in the Auckland Islands is blustery. Wonderful for albatross, not so good for that jar of rare Siberian dragon scales you were saving."

Dumbledore was not sure that it was the grinding of the rotating staircase or crooked teeth that marked Snape's perfunctory exit.

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"I'm what?"

"With child." Snape muttered into his collar before wiping his mouth nervously.

On either side of the tall dark imposing man stood a prim Poppy Pomfrey, a dusty and rumbled Albus Dumbledore and in a state of high dudgeon, Minerva 'not one of mah gahls!' McGonagall.

Snape's dark gaze drifted off over to the windows to wistfully study the morning sunlight playing on the windowsills, but his shoulder hunched as if preparing for a blow.

"Pregnant." Minerva spat with a firm nod and a pursed look at the Potions Master.

"As in having a baby?" Hermione tried to clarify.

"Baby?" Poppy fiddled with a stray curl that had escaped her starched hat and let out a nervous laugh. "Yes… baby."

Snape locked his gazes on the Mediwitch, but she avoided eye contact, instead humming out a long plaintive note.  "What's the matter with you woman?" He asked with an annoyed expression. "Is the idiot child pregnant or not?"

McGonagall moved, but Dumbledore stopped her, muttering. "All in good time Minerva."

"Excuse me?" Hermione asked reaching out to touch Pomfrey's arm, "Am I?"

"Hermione, please take a seat." Dumbledore's voice took on that note of quiet command that exuded power. "Severus, Minerva, be civil. I know you can be, no use pretending otherwise." He directed the girl to a chair while everyone focused on the Mediwitch.

Hermione shakily gained a seat while Snape faded into the shadows behind the Head Master's back, checking his distance from Professor McGonagall. Slipping just out of her line of sight while one of his hands was strategically placed over his crotch. By the look on McGonagall's face it was very politic move.

Once the occupants of the infirmary had settled, Dumbledore nodded to Pomfrey to begin.

"Yes." Poppy said as. "You are pregnant, but not with a witch or wizard."

Snape blinked and frowned in annoyance while McGonagall began to expand with anger.

"A Squib?" Hermione hedged.


"If only." Poppy replied.

The girl's expression grew fraught. She sought out Snape and accused. "What did you do to me?"

"Yes?" Minerva wheezed through a tight jaw and sharp teeth. "What did you do to her Professor?"

"I beg your pardon?" Snape protested pulling himself to his full height. He jutted out his pointed chin but for all his haughtiness a tell tale line of sweat was visible on his top lip. "Nothing unusual I believe. The usual for snakes I would think. Why? What is going on Pomfrey?" He demanded, slipping a quick glance at McGonagall to make sure she was out of 'knee in groin' territory.

Pomfrey sighed. There was no easy way to say it. "You're carrying snakes." She gave Snape a disgusted look as this information sank in. "While you were – indisposed - as a snake, Professor Snape-" She fumbled as the stunned expressions of Minerva and Hermione impacted upon her. "That is, instinct got the better of…"

Her voice trailed off as Hermione's outraged face lifted and turned toward the tall Potions Master. She stared at him in mute amazement, only dimly aware that McGonagall had lifted her skirt and was raising a boot.

Snape saw the motion and slithered behind the Head Master. Hermione blinked and struggled a gasping breath. "What!"

"What indeed Professor Snape!" McGonagall huffed after him like a heat seeking bagpipe. "Come out and face me like a man you filthy excreta!"

"Temper Minerva. You promised to be civil." Albus Dumbledore wagged a finger at her. "Have you been working out?" He commented as he caught sight of her leg and gave her an appreciative nod.

"Albus." She warned, her Scottish accent and temper grown thick and Glaswegian. "Hasn't there been enough sexual harassment in Hogwarts to last a life time?"

Dumbledore looked at McGonagall, then at Snape and chastised slipped one of his hands over his crotch too. "I apologise Minerva." He murmured with his head bowed. "Sugar high too many sweeties."

"I told you she was related to a harpy." Snape mumbled in his ear suddenly feeling they had accidentally apparated into the midst of a radical feminist rally. Diplomatically they tried to fade into the woodwork.

"Four baby adders." Poppy spoke to Hermione, her voice soft as she squeezed the stunned young witch's hand, "You have four babies growing inside of you."


Hermione shook her head, opened her mouth, closed it, paused and frowned. Tilting her head to one side she looked up and studied Snape, incredibly puzzled that he could be a sexual creature, her eyes dropping to his hand as it hovered over his crotch, a snake and a trouser snake. It was like discovering your parent's had a love life. The man stared back at her expressionless as a dank stone wall. "Oh… "

She paled noticeably and swayed on the chair and to everyone's surprise Snape swept forward to steady her. She looked up at him as if to confirm this news and meeting his eyes and shuddered.

"Yes, Miss Granger." He confirmed her worst fears. "It would appear it was the usual."

"Oh." Hermione clutched her midriff and searched the faces of the other people in the room. "Snakes? Four of them?" She was trembling and felt nauseous. She passed a clammy hand over her face before asking. "Oh shit." She cursed, her world spinning until all she could see was black wool and vivid tartan. "Who's going to tell my parents?"

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tbc