The diagnobug hovered three inches in front of Severus' large nose. He glared at it.

Healer Benson was too professional to roll his eyes, but instead fixed the ovoid glass bubble with a steady gaze as it fizzed and crackled through its investigation into the patient's magical energy. The National Healing Service had banned the use of non-contact diagnostic instruments ten years ago, believing more accurate results were obtained from hands-on examinations, but most private healers kept a diagnobug for use on their more squeamish rich lady clients. And oddballs like Snape of course.

Lucius was slouching against the doorframe, still looking a tad tousled from his attempts to persuade his lover to see the healer. Benson had waited in the sitting-room for a few minutes, mildly entertained by the screams and hexes coming from the bedroom, before marching in and deftly hitting the dark young man with a petrificus totalis. It was most unusual to receive such a grateful smile from a Malfoy. Of course, your goody-goody NHS staff would raise objections to forcing patients – sorry, 'customers' as they called them nowadays – to do things against their will, but a lifetime's working for the Malfoy family had made its impact on Benson's moral code. He knew which side his bread was buttered.
'Ethics,' he would announce at dinner parties, about halfway down his third glass of port, 'Is a large county to the East of London'. He liked to think of himself as a bit of a wit.

The bug stopped spinning and glowed green. As Benson placed it onto a piece of parchment, the point on the bottom began scratching out its findings. Lucius released the spell on Severus, who immediately reached for his wand and hit him with a cauliflower-ear hex, before collapsing back onto the bed, exhausted from the effort.

Delicately removing two healthy florets from either side of the blond head, Benson smiled to himself at young Malfoy's air of consternation. He looked between the two of them. Lucius had things the wrong way round – the aristocracy traditionally married ugly women, recruiting the seductive blonde as an extra-marital treat. Many years ago he had concluded that rich men who kept a mistress in addition to their wives did themselves no favours, they merely multiplied their domestic trouble by two (or three, once one took into account the duplicity and inevitable jealousy). The unfortunate business with Narcissa had caused a year's worth of anguish, now this bad-tempered youth's illness was producing more pain.

The diagnobug had stopped writing, and dropped onto the desk with a resonant clink.

"What does it say?" demanded Lucius, leaning forward to look at the sheet. Benson snatched it away, having too much experience to allow pushy relatives to form their own erroneous conclusions.
The first few lines were obvious from a briefest glance at Snape. Dehydration, malnutrition, exhaustion and nausea all made sense. But the next word floored him. He picked up the bug and shook it, frowning. It hissed at him malevolently for questioning its judgement.

"I knew it!" exclaimed Snape, sprawling melodramatically across the pillows. "Tell me the truth. How long have I got to live?"

"I'm afraid the instrument must be faulty," he said hesitantly. This was most odd. He'd had the thing for fifty years and it had never let him down yet. Unless…? He peered closely at Severus. "You are male, are you not?" He sincerely hoped so, with a face like that.

"Of course he is!" snapped Lucius, before Severus could string together a colourful retort. "Trust me on this. Your crystal ball thing must be really knackered, if it doesn't even know that!"

"Not a problem, I just need a second opinion on something," intoned Jeremy cheerfully. He fumbled in his black leather bag and pulled out a phial of colourless liquid. It did not take long to persuade Snape to provide a few drops of urine, especially after the healer had threateningly waved a nice big catheter in his direction. Once these were added, he shook the mixture thoroughly, before leaving it to stand on the table. Three pairs of eyes watched the liquid swirl and settle.

Then it turned blue.

"Oh my," said Benson.

…….

Snape's lethargy vanished almost instantaneously. He explained all about the potion he had brewed, pacing excitedly back and forth, obviously delighted at its unqualified success. Benson had to agree, that if the stuff could even make a man able to conceive, then surely it would work on the most barren of females. They both shook their heads at the irony of the situation, and cursed Narcissa's allergy six ways from Sunday, before Severus finally left the realm of the academic for the here-and-now.

"So, Jeremy, which abortive potion would you recommend?" he asked, obviously considering the healer as an equal now that he was a proven brewing genius.

"In your particular situation, Severus, I would advise a short and painless surgical procedure. I am unsure of your new biology, so it might be worthwhile taking a look inside anyway," he suggested, professional curiosity stirring for the first time in decades of elbow bunions and dragon-pox.

"Perfect," beamed the young wizard, carefully touching his abdomen. "Do you have a camera? I would like to see what's going on in here."

"Naturally, naturally. Well, shall we get started? Liquid anaesthetic or gas?"

"Hold your hippogriffs!" shouted Lucius, managing to speak for the first time since regaining consciousness. The others froze, staring at him. He rose from the armchair with a strange, determined expression and smoothed back his hair before calmly announcing;

"I will not allow you to murder the heir to the Malfoy dynasty."

Later, Benson swore he had actually heard Snape's jaw hit the floor. The silence may have lasted for a year or two, or maybe a few moments. Everyone was too busy looking at each other to keep track.

"Lucius, it's not really…I mean, you can't honestly…" stuttered Snape at last. "It was just a fluke!"

"Call it what you will. I call it the conception of my…" he glanced over at the phial of blue potion and raised an eyebrow, "…my son?" Benson nodded dumbly. Severus' knees buckled underneath him, and the others rushed to help him over to the bed. The argument raged for a long time before Snape glumly conceded defeat. He had one parting shot, however.

"What on Earth will Narcissa say?"

…….

She listened to the long explanation politely, with her pretty hands folded in her lap. Only when Lucius had finished, did she open her mouth.

"Are you serious!" she exclaimed at last.

"I am, my dear," replied Lucius evenly, wishing he had paid more attention during his private legilimency lessons. So much hinged on how she accepted this development.

"Let me clarify the issue," Narcissa recapped. "I remain in the house for the next seven months, while you inform our acquaintances that I am suffering a difficult pregnancy and cannot possibly have visitors. At the end of this period, I will be handed your heir to raise and to love as I would my own child, without gaining a single stretch-mark or an ounce of extra fat?"

He nodded. Her face melted into a beautiful smile, which seemed to light not only the blue velvet drawing-room, but the troubled depths of Malfoy's soul with it.

"Lucius, darling, it's perfect!"

…….

A/N: Lovely, flattering reviews! Thank you! Glad you appreciate my patchy sense of humour.

Once this one is finished I really should set about finishing the longer ones, before HBP arrives and makes them all irrelevant! (That wasn't a complaint – I really can't wait! - but rest assured, if she kills off Snape I'll be straight on the train to Scotland for a 'quiet word'.)