"The things we fear most have already happed to us." --'One Hour Photo'

Chapter Six: Are You a Witch?

Marlene smiled reassuringly at the handsome wizard that had come in with Hermione Granger. He had black hair pulled back in a small ponytail and dark smoky eyes. His unblemished skin was a dark, uniformed bronze. His right ear was pierced, but he had no earring in at the moment. The robes he had on over his muggle black jeans and tee was the exact purple of the Pendragons, one of the older bloodlines. All in all, he looked extremely edible to the red-haired receptionist.

"Don't worry. I'm sure your girlfriend's going to be just fine."

"She's not my girlfriend," he snapped as he resumed his pacing. "That would be disturbing. She's practically my sister." He shuddered.

"Oh, so you aren't dating?" Marlene crowed silently. Any other woman she could have competed with, but not the Hermione Granger, one of the five most respected war-heroes, despite the other woman's muggle ancestry.

"Not 'Mione." He stopped and stared at the door for a moment. "Can't you check if she's okay?"

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't, Mister...?"

"Po--Zabini."

"Mr. Zabini." Marlene smiled in her most charming way. This one was worth the effort. He was good looking, rich, and most importantly, descendant of one of the First Families. The Zabinis were Italian with hints of gypsy blood, but they were still respectable. They were also very fussy about who they allowed to marry into the family, but Marlene was the tenth generation of the English line of Tolonos, another pureblood family, though Greek, not Italian. Mum would be so proud. "Do you have a first name, Mr. Zabini?"

"Yes, I believe I do," he answered, finally turning to face her. "Why can't you go check on her--'Mione!"

Marlene cursed her luck at Hermione Granger's appearance. Couldn't she had waited a few more minutes? The formerly pacing man had the legendary witch enveloped in his arms before she had fully entered the room. Her limbs shook slightly, a subconscious act he had learned to mean she was upset. The fact that she was also as pale as a sheet gave away that whatever it was, it was very serious. She hadn't looked like that since Ron's memorial service.

"What's wrong, Hermione?" She buried her face in his chest in answer. His gut tightened with worry. He tightened his hold on her. "It didn't work?"

"It worked," she mumbled. She lifted her face from his chest and stepped away from him. He didn't say anything as he watched her pull herself together. "How much time do you have left?"

"Twenty-three minutes--plenty of time." He lifted her chin so that he could meet her eyes. What he saw there, he hadn't seen since the month leading up to the Final Battle. "What's wrong, 'Mione?"

"Not here, Harry." A weariness that hadn't been there before became apparent in her voice. He didn't question her any more. He only followed her out of the clinic...leaving behind a frustrated receptionist.

--------

The group of men gathered in the living room of the flat were silent. Outside, dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky. Harry, once more looking like himself, had resumed his pacing. Blaise sat calmly in the chair nearest the door. Seamus nervously chewed on his fingernails as he sat in the space between his boyfriend's legs. He had woken up from his light doze about a half an hour ago when Harry and Blaise's discussion of Scrimgeour's policies had turned into a loud round of Scrimgeour-bashing. The Weasley twins had laid claim to the couch hours ago and were now sleeping with their backs against each other. Their feet dangled off opposite sides of the couch. There was no way that they could be comfortable.

"Should someone go in there?"

Harry shook his head at Seamus' question as Blaise murmured a soft negative. The Irish wizard craned his head to look at his lover. The Slytherin just leaned his head against the back of the armchair and let his eyes slide close. It had been a long night for all of them. Questioningly, Seamus turned to his ex-roommate. Harry sighed. It was probably going to be an equally long day.

"Whenever Hermione locks herself away, she does it for a reason," Harry carefully explained. "It's almost always serious." 'Why didn't Seamus ever notice that before? Ah, wait...wasn't it 'Mione who explained it to me and--' He rushed on speaking before he could finish that thought. "She's probably just coming to terms with the knowledge of whoever is the father."

"It's Severus Snape."

Three heads swung around to face the now-open door to Hermione's bedroom. Silence spread after her pronouncement. None, not even the announcer, could believe their ears. None had imagined the Potions Professor having children. He was not the type to be anyone's father. The idea that he was about to become one was shocking.

Not surprisingly, Blaise recovered first. He jumped up with a triumphal shout that woke up the twins. Everyone watched as the young lord performed a jig that he must have learned from Seamus. Then the motions changed to something similar to the dances Hermione had learned from Naman and Uncle Radel. Hermione's frayed nerves snapped when Blaise reached to pull Seamus up to dance with him.

"I fail to see how this is a good thing, Blaise."

"Don't you see it, Hermione?" Blaise spread his arms wide, embracing the room. The diamond stud twinkled in his ear like Dumbledore's eyes. "Now there is an end in sight to Mother's nagging to make an honest man of Seamus here."

"But not me mum's constant string of blind dates."

"You should come out to them," the twins chimed in, trading off as usual every couple of words. "That's how we got Mum off our backs."

"Me da' would have a heart attack."

"Well, then you'll need a Healer on hand, won't you?"

"To quote the fair Hermione: 'not helping', me love."

"'Me love'? When has Hermione ever called me that?"

The majority of those in the living room began arguing. It was difficult to follow the topic of the argument. Originally, it was about how Seamus should tell his parents about the going-on-seven-years relationship with the dark-haired man. Hermione could have sworn that had been the issue. But there were comments about Hogwarts, Dumbledore, Quidditch, and how the Weasley twins should at least try to find other men for themselves instead of each other. Seamus even mentioned Peter Pan and the giant squid, for Merlin knows why! Through it all, Harry was staring at her with his mouth open.

"Excuse me," Hermione interrupted the quarreling quartet. "But I need help here. Sev--Professor Snape is not the kind of person one goes up to and joyfully announces that one is pregnant. Oh, I hope she doesn't have his nose."

Everyone except Harry laughed. The twins swung their legs off the arms of the couch in unison. Through their laugh, they beckoned Hermione from her doorway. She noticeable hesitated before walking to take the offered seat. Biting her lip, she let her eyes drift to each of the assembled men in turn. They eventually landed on Harry, whose mouth was still dropped in shock.

"Please, Harry," she begged, "say something."

"Yes, and for Merlin's sake, close your mouth, Potter." Blaise plopped down in his armchair. "You look like a goldfish."

"Harry?" Hermione tried again. Her honey-hued eyes never left Harry's pale face. She did not even bother to roll them at Blaise's comment. Of all those here, only the Boy-Who-Lived knew about the crush she had had on the potions master during her seventh year.

"Snape?"

"Yes, Harry, Professor Severus Snape of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"The greasy-haired, large-nosed chap that tortured us mercilessly all of our school years and threw me out of his office after I looked into his Pensieve?"

"His hair isn't greasy--"

"You looked into Severus' Pensieve? Blimey, Potter, were you not happy with just one homicidal madman after you? Thought you needed another one?"

"Not helping, Blaise," snapped Hermione. Her cold stare quelled what other disbelieving comments he would have made. Potter had the right of it. The muggleborn really could be quite scary at times. Fierceness was a good thing. She would probably need it if she were to raise a Snape, let alone a Pendragon heir.

"Okay, how's this for helping: we'll all go to Hogwarts with you," Blaise announced getting up from his chair. Restlessly, he began mimicking Potter's earlier activity without thinking about it. "If we go Friday, we'll even have an excuse for going to that crumbling pile of rocks."

"Oh? What reason would that be, Sir Slytherin?"

"Honestly, Hermione, don't you ever read your mail? It's a Commencement. McGonagall is letting loose a whole new batch of dunderheads. We both got invitations. I'm willing to bet the entire Pendragon inheritance that Potter's got one as well."

"We've got one," the twins said as one. "It came in the same envelope and it was addressed to both of us."

"That crazy lemon drop doesn't miss a beat--"

"Hermione?" All eyes turned to Harry. Hermione could tell that he had remembered her confession from so long ago. "How do you feel about Snape being the father?"

Hermione sighed. All of 'her' men's eyes watched her with varying mixtures of apprehension and amusement. Blaise was the only one who seemed nonchalant. Why should he? Severus--Professor Snape was his cousin. Blaise's dark gray eyes glittered with happiness. Hermione sighed again. The Slytherin was already plotting something. That could not be a good thing.

Then she drifted back into the memories that had occupied her mind most of the night; sitting up with Severus, debating the uses of various potion ingredients. The way the firelight caught on the edges of his black teaching robes would be forever etched into her memory. Though he vehemently denied it the next morning, she knew he had covered her with the blanket the night she fell asleep on his couch. When she had told him that it didn't have the same feel as the things Dobby made magically, he had deducted ten points from Gryffindor for 'being insolent and suggesting impropriety on the behalf of a professor' and had expelled her from his rooms with the nearly customary invitation to return after dinner to continue their potion research. Then the night they had harvested that pint of unicorn blood rose to the foremost of her thoughts. The necklace around her neck warmed, reminding her of the horned horse's generosity. The memory of her last words to Severus chilled both her blood and the magical jewel.

"He doesn't have to know, right?"

Hermione looked at the men surrounded her. The fresh sun etched lines of worry into all their faces. Blaise looked as if he had something to say, but he was holding his tongue. Harry had somehow managed to stop his impression of a goldfish. Seamus was chewing a fingernail. All had bags under their eyes.

"Nobody has to know that I'm carrying the next generation of the Pendragon family line...do they?"

"Severus doesn't need to know," Blaise answered in a soft coaxing sort of way. Again, he looked as if he needed to say something. This time he pushed on with it. "We'll need to tell Mother, though. She is the Head of the family."

The thought came to him unbidden like some dark cloud blown by a cold north wind. It made Blaise shiver and shudder just the same. Wisely, he bit his tongue as Hermione nodded her agreement and Potter told her to try to get some sleep while he owled McGonagall to see if they all could come a day early.

'Mother is also a woman. Surely, she wouldn't choose to separate a mother from her child.'

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

Hermione had been scared many times in her life. When she was five, she had been sure that there was a monster in her closet. She could have sworn that it was always seemed to be what scared her the most, even when she grew braver. Later, she would learn that it had probably been a boggart, but her parents had assured her repeatedly that it was just a nightmare. Naman, who was still traveling with the troop regularly, had been the only one to take her seriously. In her next trip to England, the choovihni had done a banishing. That had been as scary as it had been fun.

But terror was a completely different matter. Hermione could count on one hand the number of times she had been terrified. That icy emotion was impossible to forget.

The sight of Harry and Ron, her only friends in the strange, only-half-familiar world she found herself in, tangled in Devil's Snare shook the very foundations of her soul. She had felt so helpless and so very small. She was going to loose had made Hogwarts bearable. All thoughts of magic had been drowned out by the cold thought of loosing her best friends. It had been a struggle to remember details about what was going to take them from her. Ron had been the one that had brought her back to reality.

"Well, are you a witch or aren't you?" he had snapped in frustration. The words of the spell had suddenly been there and the terror passed.

The second time had been harder to deal with because after teaching Harry the Summoning Charm, there had been nothing she could do to have helped. She had to watch as her almost-brother went up against a dragoness whose only thought was to protect her nest. Terror had been like a stone at the bottom of her belly. In those tense minutes, she had held Ron's arms so hard he had bruises for a week.

At the time, she had been convinced that nothing could be worse than watching Ron and Harry go up against forces that could easily squash them in to mash. However, they were at least armed against those forces. They were both competent wizards, if a bit lax in the homework arena.

Rity had been only six.

Death Eaters had attacked her home two weeks after the end of sixth year. They had swarmed like rats through the town, casting Unforgivables as children cast stones onto the lake at Hogwarts. There had been no place to run to, no place to hide. And, even worse, there had been no chance of help. The green light of the Killing Curse had painted the entire neighborhood in its deadly shade.

There has never been a doubt in Hermione's mind that they had come because of her. The guilt only made the terror worse as her mother and father had rushed into the night, deaf to her pleas to stay, in attempt to help. The Doctors Granger were struck down before they could get out of Hermione's sight. She had done the only thing she could think of: she hid Rity in an upstairs closet and set the strongest locking charms she knew before heading out to see what the night held. All the while Ron's words from their first year had echoed in her mind.

"Well, are you a witch or aren't you?"

Yet facing the masked Dark minions was not as nerve-wracking as watching her house explode just when she had thought she was safe, that the attack was over. Only Kingsley Shacklebolt's arms around her waist had kept her from rushing into the inferno to search for her younger sister. Her pleas once again were heard only by deaf ears as she struggled to get free. Those moments were the second most painful memories she had of the War.

Then Rity had tumbled from the burning building, unharmed and giggling uncontrollably, proving that she had the same magical talent as Hermione.

Then there was the brief clenching of her gut when Blaise had mentioned telling Lanai about the child. Hermione knew what had caused that brief hesitation when he mentioned Lanai Zabini's position as matriarch of the Pendragon clan. Head of Families were still given free reign over heirs in the Wizarding world. The only reason she knew that at all, ironically, was Dudley Dursley.

Harry's cousin had been taken to St. Mungo's at the beginning of seventh year. Vernon Dursley had been able to forbid the Healers from giving the large boy a potion that would have saved him despite being less magically inclined than his wife, Petunia Dursley. Thus Hermione was very aware that Lanai could take Hermione's child from her, if the Lady Pendragon so chose. Terror and grief filled her at just the thought of that happening.

So telling a man she had had a crush on nearly her entire seventh year what most people (but not him) would perceive as good news was nothing.

The fact that she might have even loved him was such a small thing.