"A man understands one day that his life is built on nothing and that is a bad, crazy day." --Unknown

Chapter Five: The Mallet of Truth

"Ah, Miss Granger, you're back. I trust that you read all the material I gave you last week."

"Yes, ma'am," Hermione replied, a shy smile on her lips. The week had been spent buried in the recommended reading. Between Blaise, Seamus, Harry, Fred, George, and her, they had come up with a list of necessary questions. That had been the easiest part. It took three more days to answer the vast majority of them. Surprisingly, it had been Harry who had found the loophole that would save her from appearing insane. She needn't tell 'Mr. Brazil', as Blaise had dubbed the father, that her child was his, only that she was pregnant.

"Do you have any questions?"

Obediently, Hermione pulled out her roll of parchment from her pocket. She searched her list for a question her men hadn't been able to answer. Most of the questions had a paragraph in either Blaise's tidy scrawl or her tiny print. One or two had Harry's messy writing or Seamus' nearly illegible splatters. A few had obviously been answered by one of the twins. The only bit of handwriting she didn't recognize was an unanswered question at the very bottom of the list. Without dwelling on the unfamiliarity, she read off the question.

"What if he dies before I can tell him?"

"If he dies or is unable to hear you, then the spell acts as if you had told him. However, if the current location, as listed below the father's name, is deceased, then the name and current location of the father's next of kin will be listed. The knowledge of the pregnancy must be passed onto them."

"Has--" Hermione paused to bite her lip. Restless, her fingers picked at the faux leather of the stool upon which she perched. She swallowed the lump threatening to choke her. "Has that ever happened before? The father being dead?"

"Only once in the last hundred years," the medi-witch replied in her brisk manner. "Female; five pounds, 1 ounces; sixteen inches. The father was Taliesin. The daughter was later registered as a Metamorphmagus. More likely, though, it will be one of your contemporaries. You're twenty-three?"

"Only chronologically," came Hermione's blithe reply. "Physically, I'm thirty...due to...due to time turner use."

"Ah, yes, I see the notation now. Used a time turner in your third year at Hogwarts to take extra classes--ambitious, dear? After Hogwarts, you became a researcher for the Ministry of Magic. Well, any more questions?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then I think we're good to start now, if you wish." At Hermione's nod, the medi-witch took a phial of a bluish potion from her pocket. It was a fertility elixir, Hermione knew from her reading. "Just drink this and relax."

---------

"Lesseekedo," came the matronly medi-witch's whisper as she waved the wand good for this spell alone. Unable to deal with the nervous anticipation, her mind began spitting facts back at her. The spell had to be cast three times. Each casting had to be nine minutes apart, no more, no leas. The subject could not move during the intervals and had to be conscious the entire time.

The wand itself was nine and a half inches long with a core made from a Veela hair wrapped around a stork feather. The wood was likewise wrapped around the core, making the birch neatly twisted. Legend has it as one of the few surviving objects made by Merlin. Myth, however, has the goddess Freya creating it for a devoted follower. The only thing the books had agreed on was that the wand had appeared about the same time as Slytherin's split with the rest of the Hogwarts Four.

Like other wands, this one chooses its wielder. Unlike other wands, after one wielder becomes incapable (or unwilling) to perform the magic, the Birth Wand would show up in front of its next wielder. The magicks worked best when the subject was ovulating--the potion assured this--and sincerely desired to have a child. Conception was assured of all the strictures were obeyed.

"Lesseekedo."

However, there was a price to pay. The witch who was doing the conceiving had no choice in the father. It could be any wizard in the world. No on knew why it choose the men it did. The name of the father would be revealed in a cloud of mist above the mother's womb, as would his location. The expectant witch then had three days to inform the father ('only that she's pregnant,' a part of Hermione cried out.) or she will miscarry the child. This ritual could only be done once per witch. If for whatever reason she failed to tell the father, she would be barren forever. Not even conception potions would not get her pregnant.

So much hung on three days. So much could happen in seventy-two hours. So much could go wrong in four thousand, three hundred, and twenty minutes. Every second was a chance for something to go awry. So little time with so much at stake.

"Lessee--" The sneeze came out of nowhere. It took all of Hermione's will not to jerk at the explosive noise. 'Only one shot,' she reminded herself. "Lesseekedo."

The chimes of Big Ben striking three in the afternoon welcomed the soothing green mist spilling from the wandtip. The mist gathered around her pelvis, as it seemed to solidify. It seemed to take forever for the imperial purple letters to form, but in reality, it was only a few seconds. However, Hermione did not need to see the location of 'Mr. Brazil' to know where to find him.

Which was a good thing...because she fainted at the shock of seeing his name as the father of her child.

-/--/--/--/--/-

The last thing she could remember for what seemed like the longest time about the Final Battle was the path of fiery pain racing across her skin as her Arcanic Rune was activated. A spare drop from Voldemort's portion of the potion had flown at her, striking her cheekbone with white-hot intensity. Months later, she would remember watching the dreaded Dark Lord crumbling like old bread. Then the purple-edged green light had shot from the ashes of the former Tom Riddle straight for Harry. Ron, ever the noble Gryffindor, calmly stepped into the way.

They had all grinned at each other, certain of their victory. Hermione would marry Ron by the end of the month. They would be back from their honeymoon in time for Harry's birthday party. Harry and Ron would apply for the Auror program while Hermione went to Oxford. In three years, Rity would start at Hogwarts and Naman would go back to her travels. Hermione would name her first child after her parents. It would all be a dream come true. 'Silly Gryffindor nonsense' as Professor Snape would say, but oh, how she would love it.

Then Ron had fallen.

Both Hermione and Harry caught him before he hit the floor, but it did no good. He raised already crumbling fingers to her cheek. His lips traced the now familiar sentiment of love, but no sound could be heard above the blood roaring in her ears. Then all that was left of him was cinders, cold cinders. Hermione had left her eyes drift toward the pile of Voldemort. The twin rubies that had been his eyes had laughed at them for being so foolish as to think they could defeat him.

'No,' had come the horrified thought before darkness could claim her. 'No! This was not how it was supposed to be! Only Voldemort was supposed to die! Only Voldemort...'

When she had awakened later, so much later, Professor Snape had been by her bedside. He appeared to have collapsed in sheer exhaustion into the chair acting as his bed. Not for the first time, she noticed how hollow his cheeks were, only accenting the paleness of his skin. The hair that some called greasy because of its shine (a false accusation; Hermione knew that the shine was caused by silkiness as was the clumping.) fell forward to obscure his haggard face. Her fingers had twitched with a sudden desire--'no...no, need'--to brush the hair away. Of its own volition, her hand obeyed the unspoken need.

Unconsciously, he had moved into her hand. He had murmured something vaguely like her name. She snatched her hand back in shock. As if the lost of her touch was the cause, his eyes had opened, groggy at first, then instantly wide-awake. They had stared at each other for a long moment, each taking measure of the other. They hadn't spoken since the night they had procured that pint of precious unicorn blood nearly a month ago, since the day that Rita Skeeter had run that article about Ron and her getting married.

"I never should have shown you how to make that potion," he had said in a low voice. His midnight eyes glinted in the predawn light as they stared into hers. She could see so much pain there, so much guilt. He had told her that his potions were his children. How he must feel that one last 'child' had killed, she would probably never know. "I should have known that...that Potter would have you do something utterly stupid with it."

"It was my idea, Professor," she had replied, unable to free herself from his gaze. 'Please, don't blame yourself.' "It was my own fault."

"You nearly got yourself killed, Miss Granger." He was almost hissing in his growing rage. She felt her own rage gather force, so that when he spat out his next insult, she spat back. "I had thought you had more brains than average for your House."

"That House, with all its stupidity, just saved your life, Professor," she paused, waiting on a knife's edge, then rushed on, damning the consequences, "yet again."

They stared at each other, as the silence grew more tensed. Looking back later, she would wonder why he had not taken points or...hit her. He certainly looked like he would and she had deserved it. Then all she had was anger and grief, mostly at seeing him so worn down, for his ignoring her for a month, but a fair amount for his cruel words.

She had been his lab partner, that is all. She had been a well-trained pair of hands that listened. He had said so more than once, though less as the start of Slughorn's experiment grew farther into the past. They began talking about things besides potions: dreams, hopes...fears. When Ron had proposed to her, she had talked it out with him. He had treated her as if she was a Slytherin then, though he hated the thought of her marrying Ron. He had been so angry with her. But when he next spoke, there was no trace of rage in his voice, only sympathy--pity.

"Miss Granger...I regret that I have a bit of bad news about Mr. Weasley..."

"No, you don't," she had snapped in denial of what she already knew. Fear clawed at her gut. "He's fine...and Harry's fine and we're all fine and Voldemort's dead which is fine. That was how it was supposed to go." She clamped her hands over her ears, hoping in vain that the strange dream she had had was just that. "Don't you dare tell me otherwise!"

"Hermione--"

"--FINE!" she had shouted. But she already knew. The 'Golden Trio' was now a duo. And it was all her fault. Hadn't she been the one to come up with this scheme? She rolled over on her side, her back facing the former Death Eater. "Leave me alone," had been her whispered plea. It was not until she heard the door close behind him that her first tear had fallen.

"Come back."

It was only a breath of a sob, too quiet to have reached her ears, let alone a sullen professor halfway to the dungeons. She did not know if she was trying to reach him or her fallen friend and fiancé.

But then, not knowing to whom one was pleading was such a small thing.