Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

Chapter 4: My Secret's Out

It's three months now since I started seeing Ron. I've been feeling so much better recently, since the start of January. It's amazing how sex can give you an incredible emotional boost! I feel at eaze with Ron now – our first time felt rushed and inexperienced, but it's worked out better over time. Even the Horcrux hunt is improving – we've managed to track down Slytherin's real locket and destroy it, and Harry went to see Zachiarus Smith about his grandmother Hepzibar Smith's Hufflepuff cup. There's only one thing wrong.

There's no denying I'm pregnant now.

I accepted it a month ago, when I went through a period of eating almost nothing at all and still grew fatter. I've been pretending to eat crisps, chocolate and sweets in fornt of Harry and Ron so they think it's because I'm over-eating. I've got two months before it's due, anyway. Then I don't know what I'm going to do.

Harry tentivley commented on my weight gain the other day, pointing out that if I ate less "Um…sugar and stuff, then you might look a bit nicer again, Hermione." I stormed off in a huff. I can't believe he said that! If he knew the real reason… Soon, Ron will have gone off me, I'm sure. If this is the way mens minds work, then anyone who isn't six foot tall, six stone and size six is doomed to live the life of a spinster. I'm blowing things out of proportion of course, but even if I'm feeling better generally, I looked at myself in the mirror yesterday and felt so depressed. I've blown up into a huge balloon, my ankles have swelled, and I always feel tired. I can't believe Snape did this to me. I don't know what I'm going to do with a baby. My nightmares are as strong as ever. The memory hasn't faded. I even had to say to Harry I couldn't help him on an attempt to kill Wormtail, because that day, I felt like I couldn't even move.

I've got another date with Ron tonight, even if it's only a Cannons/Harps Quidditch game. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Harry and Ron have gone out to Diagon Alley, leaving me to sit on our only sofa and rifle through Witch Weekly. I recall my date with Ron last night and smiled. We'd put this sofa to better use than I was now, certainly. Though there was a rather embarrassing moment when he found my prominent pregnant bump hard to keep out of the way. I keep wondering why he hasn't dumped me yet. I can only thank God that neither of my friends have had sex-ed – or know anything about pregnant women.

Shit. I felt something run down my leg. My water's broke.

I was having my baby. His baby. I started to panic. I had no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do. Just as I felt a lurch in my stomach, Harry and Ron came running, looking elated.

"Hermione we've…Oh my God. Ron, I told you she was pregnant! You didn't believe me, did you?"

"I'm not…" I began feebly, but it looked like Harry knew more about pregnancy that I'd given him credit for.

"How far apart are the contractions?" Harry was shouting at me.

"How the hell should I know?" I replied, agitated. I know. He was only trying to help.

"Ron, we've got to get her to St Mungo's now!" I turned to look at Ron for the first time since the two men had got back. He seemed paralysed, only able to stare at me with a shocked and disgusted look on his face. Oh God. He thinks I've cheated on him. He turned his back on Harry and me and started to run upstairs.

"Ron," Harry muttered to him, annoyed. "I can't take her on my own!"

"Fine." He continued to glare at me.

I walked over with difficulty out of the front door and apparated to St Mungos Hospital, supported my Harry and Ron. My contractions were already very painful.

What am I going to tell Ron?

Half an hour later, I was sitting comfortably in a pristine hospital bed in a private labour room, with a pain in my stomach that wouldn't go away. I kept stealing furtive glances at Ron who was scowling like a small child who had been told they couldn't have their favourite toy to play with. I sighed and nudged Harry, who kept looking at Ron as well.

"Er…I'm just going to the tea rooms for something to eat. I'll be back soon." Harry said, taking my hint. Ron made a motion to follow him out of the door, but Harry pushed his best friend back and whispered through clenched teeth, "Stay here."

"Hermione, you owe me an explanation," Ron said angrily. He was talking to the floor instead of me. I felt terrible.

"Ron, I'm so sorry. It's…yours." I don't know what made me say that.

Ron hugged me protectively, making my eyes fill with tears.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know what your reaction would be," I invented hastily. "I didn't want you to leave me. I was going to have an abortion, but I couldn't go through with it".

"It's OK, Hermione. I'll stay with you. We'll raise the child – our child together. Hermione?"

"What?" I answered.

"I…I love you."

"Ow, shit!" I suddenly clasped Ron's hand, nearly breaking his fingers. Another contraction!"

He said he loved me! I wished I could have replied something more romantic than 'Ow, shit' though. Ron's flashed from childish immaturity to a mature man I can love in the space of five minutes. He even seems much more eager to help me with my labour. Maybe he'll never even find out the truth…

"What were you and Harry going to tell me before?" I asked. "You two seemed pleased before you saw that my water had broken".

"Oh…" Ron took a few seconds to come out of his daze and realised what I was talking about. "Well, me and Harry accidentally apparated quite a long way from Diagon Alley, where we were supposed to be going. When it started to pour down with rain we ran to a cave we were near, but I turned out You-Know-Who was using it as a hideout! He escaped, but we managed to capture a couple of death eaters, and Harry – he murdered Snape!" Ron had resumed the same face of joy that his face held in Godric's Hollow.

I gasped. Harry had finally made Snape pay dearly for the murder of Albus Dumbledore. He was dead. I couldn't believe it. I savoured the feeling of relief that swept over me like an icy wave. He was dead. He was dead.

"Hermione, push, honey. Push!"

Joyce Wright, a Maternity Healer with short brown hair and a permanently sympathetic expression, was bending over my body, urging me on. I was twisted in pain. I never knew anything could hurt so badly. I felt physically and mentally tired. Harry and Ron could only watch me with slightly freaked-out looks on their faces from two spindly wooden chairs in the corner.

Finally a tiny, red, writhing, screaming baby emerged from between my legs. To me, the baby looked far from beautiful. Joyce took my baby to clean and wrap up in white cloth. Ron and Harry came over to me smiling. Ron rested his hands on my shoulders.

"Be careful," he called over to Joyce. "The baby's been born very prematurely."

"I don't think he is, Ron," Joyce smiled. "Your baby boy seems perfectly healthy, and as any newborn should look after nine months in the womb". She handed my new baby boy to me. Ron looked at me, scowling. Shit. The baby would have to be premature to be his. I looked away from him and instead looked at my son for the first time, a bastard that'd caused me so much anguish. Shock rippled through my body. My secret's out.

His skin was deathly pale, much paler than Ron's or mine. His nose looked deformed, it was so large on his tiny face. His pitch black eyes bored into me and seemed to never end, like eerie dark tunnels. His hair was neither brown or red, but a black even denser than the colour of his eyes. There was no mistaking the father of this child. He was the spitting image of his father.

"Ron, I…" Ron had already turned away.

"Snape," he whispered.

"Ron, he," I stopped and sniffed, tears already falling from my eyes on to my child's skin.

"Ron, he raped me. Nine months ago. He's dead, there's nothing I can do."

"I can't believe he would do that," Harry said, shocked. "Use you, so he can have an heir…"

"He used a fertility potion," I explained. "That's why my baby's got dark eyes, not blue. Newborn babies are supposed to be blue, I think". Joyce nodded.

"I'm not sure if I believe you, Hermione," Ron began. Harry stepped back, shoving Ron slightly towards me. "You've already lied to me twice."

"Ron, do you really think I'd have consensual sex with Snape?" I snapped. We all looked away from each other and didn't speak for a while. I looked down at my child.

I didn't feel attached to him. I didn't think he was beautiful. I certainly didn't love him, and I know that's not how I'm supposed to feel. Snape may be dead, but if I give him to an adoption service everyone will know what happened…

Joyce interrupted our silent thoughts. "Do you have a name?" she asked, turning to me.

"I'm not sure yet," I answer.

"Well, for now we'll put him down as Baby Boy Granger then," she said, taking my child so that I could rest and walking away.

"Baby Boy Granger-Weasley please, Joyce." Ron smiled at me in gratitude and gave me a warm hug. There was so much that I wanted to ask him about, but I was so exhausted, I could only fall asleep.

Epilogue: Eleven Years On

I looked across at my husband Ron, smiling slightly as I watched Seth walk towards the Hogwarts Express dressed in the school's uniform, ready to join his fellow first years arriving. Raised by his true father, he could have been a misfit. But by shrinking his overlarge nose and reminding him to regularly wash his now-short hair I'd dyed a dark brown, he managed to look very different to Severus Snape. Did I change him for his benefit or for mine? I guess I didn't have purely Seth's welfare in mind.

I think of Seth as Ron's child more than I thought of him as Snape's. Ron adopted him as soon as we married. Together, we've grown to love him. When Seth was one, Ron proposed, fresh from the final battle. Many people had fought side by side that day, all to help Harry bring down the worst dark wizard that had ever lived. It's not talked about too often now, but when Lord Voldemort appears in people's conversation, wizards and witches finally all say his name with ease.

After the last battle, all our lives finally took a turn for the better. All three of us got an order of Merlin, first class. Harry married Ginny a year later, and after working for a while as an auror in the Ministry, got promoted to Minister for Magic last year. He's expecting his first child with Ginny in a couple of months.

Ron and me married. Ron quickly found work in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. I stayed in a pokey flat we'd bought together and looked after Seth. But when Hogwarts finally opened again this year, with Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress, she asked me to fill a teaching post that was vacant – with the offer of a much better house on school grounds. So ironically, starting today, I'm teaching … potions.

The name I chose for my child means 'substitute or compensation'. Does the joy that Seth brings Ron and me make up for for that long, painful year I endured when I was eighteen?

Without question.

A/N: The End! Please R&R :-)

Best, glamur xxx