WE ARE FAMILY

Baby, It's You

Chapter 3

Hermione Granger sat in front of the open fireplace, reflecting that this wasn't how her life was meant to go. She hadn't tamed her hair in days. She was still in maternity trousers because her stomach hadn't sucked back in the way books said it would. There was baby glop dried on her shoulder. She was living in Severus Snape's rooms, complete with dark, panelled Wuthering Heights walls, high gothic Dracula ceiling, and Jim Morrison black bedsheets.

Ron Weasley sat in the chair opposite hers. He had David Granger asleep in his arms.

"This isn't how my life was meant to go," Hermione said.

"True. How was it meant to go?"

"Graduation, post-grad studies, brilliant career."

"You can still have that. Just a bit later."

Hermione sucked back tears. "I can't even remember my first year Potions lessons."

"You are living with the Potions Master, 'Mione. You could just ask him."

She snorked back more tears. The tears were the reason Snape was not present. He had taken to spending a great deal of time in the Teacher's Common Room. First it had been the post-natal baby blues. Then Hermione's disgust at getting back her period only four weeks after giving birth. Now, two months after having her son, she missed her old life.

"It's not just that, Ron. It's….. everything. I've got a baby. That means I did it. With Snape."

"Granted it's not anyone's first choice. Certainly not mine. But shoot, Hermione, everyone makes mistakes. Think of that badger tattoo I've got on my bum."

That made Hermione grin. "That will teach you to date Hufflepuff girls." She sighed. "Mum and Dad said they were willing to move again and let me live with them, but I don't see how they can. They already have a mortgage, and-"

"And living with my Mum and Dad doesn't bear thinking about."

They both thought, in silence. Mrs Weasley had made a loud, pink fuss over David. Mrs Weasley and Mrs Granger had gone bootee shopping together, and struck trouble in Harrod's when Mrs Granger's wand got tangled in a mannequin's hair. A plastic model of Elle McPherson was still walking around London somewhere. Mr Weasley had wisely taken Mr Granger to the pub.

Everyone had reconvened in Snape's room later in the evening, on an intercept course with Snape's parents. They'd eyed the baby, Hermione, and the Muggles.

"Lord and Lady, Severus, haven't you heard of Bertie Bott's Condoms?," said Snape's father. Mrs Snape elbowed him.

David's large nose stuck out of the bunny rug. He had rubbed all the hair off the back of his head, so only several tufts of fine, black fuzz topped his skull. He had milk rash on his chin.

"My, that IS a baby," said Mrs Snape. "Well, dears, we must be going."

And the room had emptied after them.

Hermione shook her head and looked at Ron. "I don't need a repeat of that day," she said.

"So, do a Summoning spell and cheer yourself up. Ask for something really good."

"More sleep."

"Really, really good."

"My own room."

"Fantastically good, 'Mione."

"Sleep in my own room, alone, for twenty four hours."

Ron gave up. He stood and laid David gently in his basinette.

"Think about it. You're a witch, fully graduated now, even if you are so tired you could die. You can order your life any way you like."

He shut the door behind him as he left. Thankfully, David didn't wake and yell. Hermione curled up in the armchair. It smelled of Snape. Not unpleasant.

"I'm a witch. I can order my life how I want."

She'd been caught up in baby mundanities too long. If she just kickstarted her mind again, surely it would all come back to her.

Snape stayed in the Common Room as long as he dared, but finally Professor Macgonagall rounded on him.

"For Merlin's sakes, Severus, go home. How can I read the papers in peace if you're here, sighing?"
"I'm perfectly comfortable where I am, thankyou Minerva."

"Dragonshit. You have a new family. Go tend to it."

There was no one else in the Common Room. All sensible teachers were in bed. Macgonagall had stayed to read the papers.

"It is precisely that reason I'm here, Minerva."

Her voice softened. "Things are not going well, then?"

He sighed. "She cries all the time."

Macgonagall raised an eyebrow. "Don't you remember what it was like first time around?"

He rubbed his eyes. "Rayleen was only seventeen. I was nineteen. We thought it was such a wicked adventure, having a baby while still at Hogwarts. Sticking it right up the rules. Carting that baby around with us to lectures, living together in Rayleen's Head Girl rooms."

"Precisely the reason we have that Gryffindor rule now about no babies."

"So, no, she didn't cry much, except later, when we realised we'd done it all too young."

"Hermione is only nineteen, Severus. She will be feeling like she's thrown her life away."

He sat for a long while, looking out of the high windows at clouds scudding over the Moon.

"Perhaps if she went home to her parents….."

"Perhaps if you acted like the father of her baby," Macgonagall snapped. "I just thank the gods that the fathers of my children are unknown. No paternity troubles."

"Yours are Beltane-gotten, Minerva. Mine aren't." He stretched again.

He didn't hear her mutter 'don't be too sure'.

"Goodnight, Severus. Go play Daddy."

"Fuck off, Minerva."

"Love you too."

He departed and made the weary journey back to his rooms. The door was standing open. Anyone could walk past and check out his library, his décor, or his Antique Owl Collection, for Merlin's sakes! What was Hermione thinking?

There was a murmur of voices within. Oh, not the Potter and Weasley brigade again, please. Didn't Hermione have any Slytherin friends?

Snape walked through the door. The room was tidied beyond all belief. The beds were made. Everything was dusted(alarming in itself). Hermione had applied some sort of hair tamer to herself and she no longer resembled a Cleansweep 1. But most surprising were the visitors.

"Hi Dad," said Santo. He had a broad Australian accent and was taller than Snape now. He had his father's dark hair and eyes, and his mother's coffee coloured skin.

Caliope took the same features and feminised them. She smiled at her father.

"Dad, hi."

Hermione swallowed. "I…er…that is….. I did a spell. I wanted to know more about you, and-"

"Looks like the spell thought we were the best bet," said Santo. He sidled over to his father. "Dad, she's younger than Caliope. That's a bit rank, isn't it? I mean, Mum said you were a bastard, but we never thought you were into cradle-snatching."

Caliope whisked Hermione away to look at the baby. Snape got a facts-of-life lecture from his son. There was something he thought he'd never experience.

"Dad, it's just creepy. The thought of you….. and her…. It's just off, that's all."

"Have you finished?"

"Mum says hi, and that you're a fucking perve."

"Tell your mother hello, and that it's none of her business any more. Now, are you finished?"

"I s'pose."

"Good. Then you will be unspeakably polite to Hermione while you are here. You will tell her nothing about my Deatheater years. You will admire David, and you will go home as soon as possible."

"Sure Dad. Righto." Santo turned away from him. "Hey, Hermione?" he called. "Are you and Dad going to have any more kids?"

Hermione blanched. Snape clipped Santo across the back of the head. Santo grinned.

"Do you think you could make a girl next time? Caliope hates being Daddy's precious." He took on a wheedling tone, uncomfortably like Gollum from those unrealistic Lord of the Rings movies.

Hermione was whiter. Her knuckles clenched around the edge of the basinette. Snape thought he saw sparks light off the ends of her tamed, but not untroubled hair.

"Er, Santo…."

"And we can all get together for Yule, which is every six months in our family, because we operate under the Southern Hemisphere. Of course, we'll need a bigger table this year."

"Santo…."

"You don't mind sitting at the kid's table, do you, Hermione?"

The hexes hit him all at once. Snape's banished him back to Australia, via a Whip-Thru spell out of Hogwarts grounds, and then express Apparation to Melbourne. Caliope's spell probably taped his mouth over. But it was Hermione's that delivered the Tarantellus curse that kept him doing the Macarena for forty eight hours straight.

"Sorry about that," said Caliope. "My brother's a first rate dickhead."

Hermione smiled thinly.

At that moment, Snape's bunk bed collapsed on top of Hermione's lower bunk.

"Santo has a peculiar sense of humour," Snape said tightly.

Caliope excused herself from the room. "I think I hear my mother calling," she said. There was going to be a fight. She could feel the tension in the air. Much safer to be on another continent. That Hermione looked like a woman to be reckoned with. Why did Dad always take up with the strong-willed ones?

David awoke and started to cry. Hermione picked him up and shushed him. She retreated to the armchair and lifted her tshirt. David was soon making gross slurping noises.

"I just wanted to know about you," she said, as Snape glared at her.

"You could have asked me."

"When were you here? I've hardly seen you in weeks." There was no sign of the weepy girl he'd left this morning. The true Hermione Granger had returned, perhaps not as true in spell-casting as she had been, but everything else except her stomach appeared to be in the right place.

"At least you have met my children," he said. "Santo will settle down. He has enjoyed all these years as my only son." He caught her doubtful look. "I will owl my ex-wife and tell her what happened. She will see to him." He paused. "Most likely with a cooking spoon."

Hermione ran her spare hand through her hair. "My fault as well, I suppose. It's silly of me to expect an instant welcome from your family." She swallowed. "And I will ask you in future. About yourself."

They eyeballed each other. David finished drinking, and wriggled sleepily in Hermione's arms. Snape came forward and lifted him up.

"I'll take him if you want to rest." He looked at the bags under Hermione's eyes. He held David with one arm and produced his wand. "Aqua lavendis," he said, and swished and flicked. "There's a lavender oil bath waiting for you."

Hermione didn't move. "David needs a clean nappie,and a bath, and-"

"I am his father. I'll manage."

Still she didn't move. Snape muttered another spell. Hermione's clothes fell to the floor. She screamed and tried to cover herself.

Snape rolled his eyes, but not before giving her an appreciative once-over. "Hermione, at some point, I have seen it all before. Go and bathe. I will bath David."

Hermione scurried away, one hand over her breasts, which she knew was stupid because he'd watched her breastfeed every day for two months. And one hand over her rear, which was doubly stupid because one small hand was not going to cover her post-baby spread. She clambered into the bath before reflecting that David usually used the bath. How was he going to bath the baby?

She stretched out in the huge, triangular bath and greedily thought "Mine, mine".

The bathroom door opened. She blinked. Two naked males in the bathroom….in the bath. She shifted her legs to make room for them. Snape cradled David on his knees. There was just no etiquette for a moment like this.

"Hermione, presumably at some point, say eleven months ago, you have seen me naked. I am David's father. There is absolutely no reason to be coy."

At least he had a gurgling baby to cover his genitals.

"We are a family. Perhaps not the most traditional one, but there we stand," Snape said.

David kicked water at Hermione. She relaxed her hands from over her breasts and leaned forward to cup water over their baby's head. He refluxed a gob of sour milk onto Snape's hand.

"Are you going to be getting into everything that's mine?" Hermione asked, without thinking.

Snape's eyebrow rose. "I thought," he said slowly, "that I had already done that."

***** *****

Thankyou to everyone who supplied me with baby horror stories. They are much appreciated. When I figure out where this story is going, and hopefully a plot will appear soon, I shall post again.