So... anyone missed me??? Huh? *smug smile* ;) Thank you for being patient, I have examns galore the following three weeks and I don't know when I'll find time to write.. But, not to worry here comes chapter seven at least!
Hugs,
Restina
(in need of a break from all the brain-destroying craming)
If you could step into my head, tell
me would you still know me
If you woke up in my bed, tell me
would you hold me
Or would you simply let it lie,
leaving me to wonder why
I can't get you out of this head
I call mine
Fragment of 3 Doors Down's "So I Need You"
The Curse, part 7
Seven months and one week. Severus had just stretch- spelled his clothes AGAIN for the second time in two weeks. The fabric of his clothes was starting to thin out so it looked like Severus had to make a disgracing appointment with a tailor pretty soon. Everyone could now plainly see the
rapid changes on the professor's body, and some were wondering if the man had some sort of eating disorder. But no one bothered him face to face any more. He reckoned they were too afraid of having him exploding with fury in their faces if someone hinted he was gaining weight.
On the bright side Severus had learned that Dumbledoore was going away in a couple of weeks and would be gone for two months to be on some wizard-convention. That suited Severus well. It was Albus' searching eye, he was most afraid, would unveil his secret. He reckoned the headmaster would return to deal with the disaster in good time just before the child was born. One less thing to worry about almost made his life bearable. But he had to brace himself every moment of the day, in case his bonded would look his way. The walls between them were crumbling into dust day by day, soon
Harry would be able to read Severus' face just as well as the headmaster, probably better. Severus had lost his mask and was no longer able to hide from the soul mate his heart longed for. And the distance between them pained him more and more. His walk was no longer as proud and swift as before.
At nights he cried himself to sleep, a very frightening and disturbing experience for the man who'd bottled up his feelings for most of his life.
The prospect of spending the rest of his life without Harry in it was too hard to cope with, and the thought of their child having no contact with his/her second parent pained him beyond anything Voldemort had ever done to him. But he would be strong, for the child's sake at least. He'd never even considered parenthood so this would too be a new and shocking experience for him. He had briefly considered giving the baby away for adoption, but his body and mind screamed against the idea of leaving his flesh and blood behind as something useless and unworthy. At least he would have part of Harry with him like that, and hopefully he could learn to be a good father.
Sometimes he could sit in his study for hours just feeling the baby move inside him. It was a thrilling sensation feeling the kick of a foot, the brush of a hand. Somehow it made him feel whole and everything made sense in some weird kind of way. This was the only happy moments in Severus' life now. He lived and breathed for these treasured moments of tranquillity,
feeling a new bond grow stronger- the bond of parenthood.
*-*
Harry wasn't doing much better. He still struggled with the whole idea of becoming a father in the nearest future. And the image from the mirror came back to haunt him day and night. He and Snape- together. Raising a child together. He didn't want this child. At least not now. He was only eighteen, god dammit! He didn't know diddle squat about being a parent! And the child would be marked for life, the result of the curse of Voldemort, the unwanted child.. Unwanted. Harry felt like a monster. He hated a little baby who wasn't even born yet! Who'd never asked to be born. Innocent, just like Harry in the matter, innocent like Severus Snape.
No! He wouldn't develop any feelings for the man based on pity! But he realized he had to stop blaming everyone for this mess. The only one to blame was Voldemort. And in two months time a child that was half him would be born, innocent and helpless. Harry would loathe himself the rest of his life if he left the entire responsibility to Snape. He was the one suffering the most from this, having to hide something that would be harder and harder to hide for the eye, having to live with Harry's withdrawal from it all. And as the days went on more and more of the old Severus Snape, the dreaded Potions Master, disappeared from Harry's eyes and a new, vulnerable man stepped forward. Slowly Harry's eyes pealed the layers off the man no one really knew.
In his dreams he relived the moment down in the dungeons when he'd caught Snape off guard right after a bath. The smooth pale skin and the slightly larger abdomen looked so tempting to touch but he always woke up just before he reached it. He wondered how it felt to have something living and growing in your stomach. How it felt when it shifted or kicked. And above all, how it would be born!
Hermione had found some information on that last issue in some ancient book of spells and curses. A male birth was a very painful experience where the child would be born via a magical birth canal through the man's bellybutton. He would experience heavy labor and hours of pain IF he was lucky. In three out of ten a male pregnancy was fatal. The baby and the father died due to complications with the birth, because a male pregnancy is unnatural. This finally woke Harry up to the gravity of the situation. Snape was risking his very life bringing this child to the world and this made Harry feel even worse. Hermione was so shaken up by the odds of both the baby and Snape dying she had been bawling for a whole week. Ron tried to comfort her as best he could, but one easily noticed he wasn't as shaken by this news as Hermione and Harry. Harry felt guilty as he knew the strain under which he was putting Snape wouldn't help him in this crucial moment. But what could he do? Go down to the dungeons and cry his eyes out, revealing for Snape all his guilt and sorrow, cry for him not to die? If Snape wasn't scared and stressed before he certainly would be then. And Harry suspected Snape wouldn't jump at an offer from Harry to support him through the remaining months, and to be true Harry wasn't sure he could help in any way at all.
*-*
One day after a lesson Harry stayed behind after the other students had left. Snape looked so tired Harry had been sitting on needles for a whole hour, worried the older man would dive to the floor if he took his eyes from him. Snape was cleaning the blackboard in slow movements and hadn't noticed Harry staying behind.
"Let me do that," Harry said and snatched the swamp out of Snape's hand.
Snape reacted as if he was being ambushed and jumped away.
"Potter!" he gasped, heaving as he regained his breath: "You'll have to stop sneaking up on me!"
"I'm sorry, Sir!" Harry was a jerk, doing precisely the opposite of his intentions. He finished cleaning the blackboard raptly and turned towards Snape again who was watching him with a weird expression on his face.
"Thank you," he said and rubbed his neck uncomfortably. His black eyes were gleaming with surprise and gratefulness.
"You look tired," Harry said: "How're you feeling?" Snape shifted his weight from the right foot to the left and back again.
"I'm fine," he answered, when the dark rings under his eyes were saying otherwise.
"No you're not, I can see it on you!" Harry said and took one step closer:
"You look like you're carrying the world on your shoulders." Snape blinked. It looked like another brick fell from the wall that separated them. He opened his mouth for a second and closed it again, giving a pretty good resemblance to a fish on land.
"I know I haven't been much of a help lately," Harry said and blushed: "I've been kind of... trying to cope.." Snape got a sad look on his face:
"I'm sorry I got you involved in this," he said honestly: "If there was any way to.."
"There isn't, and you don't need to apologise," Harry interrupted: "If anyone should apologise it's me. I had no right blaming you for this, you are as innocent as the child you're carrying. I'm sorry I haven't realised this before now."
"You're a young man, Harry. You may have grown up in a haste but some things needs age and experience to cope with. Lord knows I don't feel experienced enough to cope with this, so I can only begin to guess how you're feeling." Snape leaned against the desk and looked so human Harry couldn't believe he hadn't discovered this side of Severus before. His eyes locked on the professors bulging stomach and he felt a sudden urge to touch it. To touch the very thing that was the reason to this mess. He stepped forward, and before he even knew what he was doing- his hand laid on Severus Snape's belly. He'd touched it before, briefly, but this time he didn't jerk away with the feel of movement from beneath Severus' clothes. There, just inside, a tiny foot kicked and the very sensation felt so weird Harry had to smile. Snape looked startled, but he didn't back away or remove Harry's hand. Harry was so filled with emotions a shivering went through his body. This was his son or daughter!
"How does it feel?" he whispered awestruck by this new and unknown emotion.
Severus let a hand slide absentmindedly over his abdomen:
"Strangely it feels like everything makes sense somehow," he said and Harry noticed the professor's eyes were filled with a rare glow.
"I don't know what the future will bring to this child, but I know I will fight for it to have a decent life.. not to become like me." Harry slowly lowered his hand, looking at the man in front of him with new eyes. This couldn't be the bat he'd loathed for almost six years! Sure he looked the same, still with black bottomless eyes, shoulder long, black and greasy hair, the crooked nose, the thin lips. Yet he looked totally different somehow. Was it the spark in the older mans eyes every time he looked down on the secret he kept hidden under his skin? Or was it all of him that had changed, to a new and milder Snape, to a Snape Harry felt weirdly close to? For the first time in his life Harry felt kindness and warmth for this man and the very sensation surprised him.
"I know you probably see me the way I have behaved the six years I've known you, and that that impression might be impossible to change. And I want you to know I won't bother you with anything after the child is born. If you want me to leave, I'll leave, but I can't leave without your permission, our bond would forbid it. You don't feel the bond as strongly as I do, because I never let it evolve into anything. Therefore you are free to do as you choose, as I need your permission.. " Severus' gaze was honest and strong, he seemed to be able to discuss this matter with Harry in a totally different way than just some weeks ago.
"You're right, I don't feel any bond tying us together except from the one that's growing inside you," Harry answered: "I don't know if I'll ever feel anything, but I can tell that much: my feelings towards you have changed a great deal. I can no longer see you as the foul professor giving everybody a hard time, you've changed the last months and the changes has all been for the better." He smiled awkwardly as it dawned on him that he was trying to give the Potions Master a compliment. But the man looked almost attractive where he stood, the way his cloak swung down his body, the growing belly and the nearly kind eyes made him look younger.
There was a tense moment of silence between them, before Snape reached for his books:
"Thanks for the help, Potter," he said and a little smile appeared on his lips: "And thanks for the talk."
Hugs,
Restina
(in need of a break from all the brain-destroying craming)
If you could step into my head, tell
me would you still know me
If you woke up in my bed, tell me
would you hold me
Or would you simply let it lie,
leaving me to wonder why
I can't get you out of this head
I call mine
Fragment of 3 Doors Down's "So I Need You"
The Curse, part 7
Seven months and one week. Severus had just stretch- spelled his clothes AGAIN for the second time in two weeks. The fabric of his clothes was starting to thin out so it looked like Severus had to make a disgracing appointment with a tailor pretty soon. Everyone could now plainly see the
rapid changes on the professor's body, and some were wondering if the man had some sort of eating disorder. But no one bothered him face to face any more. He reckoned they were too afraid of having him exploding with fury in their faces if someone hinted he was gaining weight.
On the bright side Severus had learned that Dumbledoore was going away in a couple of weeks and would be gone for two months to be on some wizard-convention. That suited Severus well. It was Albus' searching eye, he was most afraid, would unveil his secret. He reckoned the headmaster would return to deal with the disaster in good time just before the child was born. One less thing to worry about almost made his life bearable. But he had to brace himself every moment of the day, in case his bonded would look his way. The walls between them were crumbling into dust day by day, soon
Harry would be able to read Severus' face just as well as the headmaster, probably better. Severus had lost his mask and was no longer able to hide from the soul mate his heart longed for. And the distance between them pained him more and more. His walk was no longer as proud and swift as before.
At nights he cried himself to sleep, a very frightening and disturbing experience for the man who'd bottled up his feelings for most of his life.
The prospect of spending the rest of his life without Harry in it was too hard to cope with, and the thought of their child having no contact with his/her second parent pained him beyond anything Voldemort had ever done to him. But he would be strong, for the child's sake at least. He'd never even considered parenthood so this would too be a new and shocking experience for him. He had briefly considered giving the baby away for adoption, but his body and mind screamed against the idea of leaving his flesh and blood behind as something useless and unworthy. At least he would have part of Harry with him like that, and hopefully he could learn to be a good father.
Sometimes he could sit in his study for hours just feeling the baby move inside him. It was a thrilling sensation feeling the kick of a foot, the brush of a hand. Somehow it made him feel whole and everything made sense in some weird kind of way. This was the only happy moments in Severus' life now. He lived and breathed for these treasured moments of tranquillity,
feeling a new bond grow stronger- the bond of parenthood.
*-*
Harry wasn't doing much better. He still struggled with the whole idea of becoming a father in the nearest future. And the image from the mirror came back to haunt him day and night. He and Snape- together. Raising a child together. He didn't want this child. At least not now. He was only eighteen, god dammit! He didn't know diddle squat about being a parent! And the child would be marked for life, the result of the curse of Voldemort, the unwanted child.. Unwanted. Harry felt like a monster. He hated a little baby who wasn't even born yet! Who'd never asked to be born. Innocent, just like Harry in the matter, innocent like Severus Snape.
No! He wouldn't develop any feelings for the man based on pity! But he realized he had to stop blaming everyone for this mess. The only one to blame was Voldemort. And in two months time a child that was half him would be born, innocent and helpless. Harry would loathe himself the rest of his life if he left the entire responsibility to Snape. He was the one suffering the most from this, having to hide something that would be harder and harder to hide for the eye, having to live with Harry's withdrawal from it all. And as the days went on more and more of the old Severus Snape, the dreaded Potions Master, disappeared from Harry's eyes and a new, vulnerable man stepped forward. Slowly Harry's eyes pealed the layers off the man no one really knew.
In his dreams he relived the moment down in the dungeons when he'd caught Snape off guard right after a bath. The smooth pale skin and the slightly larger abdomen looked so tempting to touch but he always woke up just before he reached it. He wondered how it felt to have something living and growing in your stomach. How it felt when it shifted or kicked. And above all, how it would be born!
Hermione had found some information on that last issue in some ancient book of spells and curses. A male birth was a very painful experience where the child would be born via a magical birth canal through the man's bellybutton. He would experience heavy labor and hours of pain IF he was lucky. In three out of ten a male pregnancy was fatal. The baby and the father died due to complications with the birth, because a male pregnancy is unnatural. This finally woke Harry up to the gravity of the situation. Snape was risking his very life bringing this child to the world and this made Harry feel even worse. Hermione was so shaken up by the odds of both the baby and Snape dying she had been bawling for a whole week. Ron tried to comfort her as best he could, but one easily noticed he wasn't as shaken by this news as Hermione and Harry. Harry felt guilty as he knew the strain under which he was putting Snape wouldn't help him in this crucial moment. But what could he do? Go down to the dungeons and cry his eyes out, revealing for Snape all his guilt and sorrow, cry for him not to die? If Snape wasn't scared and stressed before he certainly would be then. And Harry suspected Snape wouldn't jump at an offer from Harry to support him through the remaining months, and to be true Harry wasn't sure he could help in any way at all.
*-*
One day after a lesson Harry stayed behind after the other students had left. Snape looked so tired Harry had been sitting on needles for a whole hour, worried the older man would dive to the floor if he took his eyes from him. Snape was cleaning the blackboard in slow movements and hadn't noticed Harry staying behind.
"Let me do that," Harry said and snatched the swamp out of Snape's hand.
Snape reacted as if he was being ambushed and jumped away.
"Potter!" he gasped, heaving as he regained his breath: "You'll have to stop sneaking up on me!"
"I'm sorry, Sir!" Harry was a jerk, doing precisely the opposite of his intentions. He finished cleaning the blackboard raptly and turned towards Snape again who was watching him with a weird expression on his face.
"Thank you," he said and rubbed his neck uncomfortably. His black eyes were gleaming with surprise and gratefulness.
"You look tired," Harry said: "How're you feeling?" Snape shifted his weight from the right foot to the left and back again.
"I'm fine," he answered, when the dark rings under his eyes were saying otherwise.
"No you're not, I can see it on you!" Harry said and took one step closer:
"You look like you're carrying the world on your shoulders." Snape blinked. It looked like another brick fell from the wall that separated them. He opened his mouth for a second and closed it again, giving a pretty good resemblance to a fish on land.
"I know I haven't been much of a help lately," Harry said and blushed: "I've been kind of... trying to cope.." Snape got a sad look on his face:
"I'm sorry I got you involved in this," he said honestly: "If there was any way to.."
"There isn't, and you don't need to apologise," Harry interrupted: "If anyone should apologise it's me. I had no right blaming you for this, you are as innocent as the child you're carrying. I'm sorry I haven't realised this before now."
"You're a young man, Harry. You may have grown up in a haste but some things needs age and experience to cope with. Lord knows I don't feel experienced enough to cope with this, so I can only begin to guess how you're feeling." Snape leaned against the desk and looked so human Harry couldn't believe he hadn't discovered this side of Severus before. His eyes locked on the professors bulging stomach and he felt a sudden urge to touch it. To touch the very thing that was the reason to this mess. He stepped forward, and before he even knew what he was doing- his hand laid on Severus Snape's belly. He'd touched it before, briefly, but this time he didn't jerk away with the feel of movement from beneath Severus' clothes. There, just inside, a tiny foot kicked and the very sensation felt so weird Harry had to smile. Snape looked startled, but he didn't back away or remove Harry's hand. Harry was so filled with emotions a shivering went through his body. This was his son or daughter!
"How does it feel?" he whispered awestruck by this new and unknown emotion.
Severus let a hand slide absentmindedly over his abdomen:
"Strangely it feels like everything makes sense somehow," he said and Harry noticed the professor's eyes were filled with a rare glow.
"I don't know what the future will bring to this child, but I know I will fight for it to have a decent life.. not to become like me." Harry slowly lowered his hand, looking at the man in front of him with new eyes. This couldn't be the bat he'd loathed for almost six years! Sure he looked the same, still with black bottomless eyes, shoulder long, black and greasy hair, the crooked nose, the thin lips. Yet he looked totally different somehow. Was it the spark in the older mans eyes every time he looked down on the secret he kept hidden under his skin? Or was it all of him that had changed, to a new and milder Snape, to a Snape Harry felt weirdly close to? For the first time in his life Harry felt kindness and warmth for this man and the very sensation surprised him.
"I know you probably see me the way I have behaved the six years I've known you, and that that impression might be impossible to change. And I want you to know I won't bother you with anything after the child is born. If you want me to leave, I'll leave, but I can't leave without your permission, our bond would forbid it. You don't feel the bond as strongly as I do, because I never let it evolve into anything. Therefore you are free to do as you choose, as I need your permission.. " Severus' gaze was honest and strong, he seemed to be able to discuss this matter with Harry in a totally different way than just some weeks ago.
"You're right, I don't feel any bond tying us together except from the one that's growing inside you," Harry answered: "I don't know if I'll ever feel anything, but I can tell that much: my feelings towards you have changed a great deal. I can no longer see you as the foul professor giving everybody a hard time, you've changed the last months and the changes has all been for the better." He smiled awkwardly as it dawned on him that he was trying to give the Potions Master a compliment. But the man looked almost attractive where he stood, the way his cloak swung down his body, the growing belly and the nearly kind eyes made him look younger.
There was a tense moment of silence between them, before Snape reached for his books:
"Thanks for the help, Potter," he said and a little smile appeared on his lips: "And thanks for the talk."