"A perfect house, a perfect smile
There's nothing you haven't seen now
Think I'm crazy, stay a while
I know you say you want to
But you don't see behind the shutters
But you don't wanna see behind the shutters"
"Blackout" – AVIVA
After a period of time that was far too short for both new parents' tastes, they were guided back to Hermione's room, where Snape helped her back into bed and reaffixed the pressure cuffs to her lower legs.
Once they had endured another visit from a nurse, again palpating her uterus and switching out her IV bags, Snape had encouraged her to allow him to look at her incision himself.
"You're not a healer, Severus, I don't imagine there's anything you could do..." Hermione griped at him as he pulled at her hospital gown. He carefully lifted at the tape holding the bandage to her skin and frowned as he stared at the long, puckered wound.
"Christ," he murmured, and she felt his calloused fingers prodding at her abdomen. Though she couldn't see what he was doing, she winced.
"You have this because of me," he muttered to himself, tracing the tip of his index finger along the line. "I haven't what I need with me now, but tomorrow, when I return, I can bring a few supplies... I'm afraid I'll need to reopen you to address the underlying tissues,"
"What?!" She nearly shrieked, tugging violently at the hospital gown to re-cover herself. "You'll do no such thing!"
Snape looked up into her face, his expression grim. "They said it'll be a twelve week recovery. Or longer. If you allow me to treat you with Essence of Dittany and something for the scar tissue you can be back on your feet in a matter of days. Don't be foolish."
"But... cutting me back open—"
"The surgeons had to cut through several layers of tissue in order to liberate our child from your womb, including your uterine wall. I imagine I can save you from years of difficulties and possible complications of recovery if you would allow me to close you back, layer by layer, with magic. I can already see that your body is trying to reject the staples they used to close you up,"
Hermione cringed, "Staples?"
"Indeed. It isn't pretty." Snape remarked, his expression grim.
The witch sighed and relaxed back in her bed with a frown. "If you think you can..."
"Just what do you take me for?" The man sneered with great arrogance.
She rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Severus? A would-be convict who works as a script-writer for a muggle role-playing game, perhaps? Not exactly someone whom I'd choose to suture up my lacerations, at first glance,"
"You forget who I am, witch." He seemed mildly offended. "You think I took every cut and gash to Poppy Pomfrey? I am well trained in healing, at least as far as one might consider a passable field medic. You think I spied for twenty years without having a few tricks up my sleeve?"
"Far be it for me to doubt your tricks, Severus," Hermione giggled. "And besides, you like to say twenty years, but we both know that the cumulative time spent spying was probably closer to ten years or slightly less,"
Snape glared down at her from his seat at her bedside. "Ten years, twenty years—either is a respectable life-span for a spy,"
"Very much so," Hermione drawled, "particularly for one who supposedly died in action,"
To this, the wizard shrugged. "All the more reason to trust me. I managed to save my own damn skin, didn't I? And the fact that I'm presumed dead is nothing more and nothing less than a compliment to my skills at subterfuge."
"Yes, you are a skilled liar, aren't you," she commented, her voice rather dry.
At this, Snape seemed to grow solemn, and he caught up her gaze in his own. His eyes held a depth of sincerity that instantly sobered her. "I will not pretend that I have not had many opportunities and reasons to lie in my life, Hermione. But I have no desire, nor the inclination, to lie to you."
There were a few beats of heavily laden silence between them before Snape seemed to grow either weary or uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment and he started down a new line of questioning.
"Anyway, what was this I heard about you playing on the Galdrvale servers?"
For a moment, Hermione was thrown. She blinked owlishly at the man before her. "... How did you know—?"
"A little snidget flew by and enlightened me,"
The witch frowned in confusion, "A snidget—?"
"Potter."
"Harry? You spoke to Harry?" She asked, her face creasing with a mixture of worry and befuddlement.
Snape shook his head, sending strands of his hair whipping about his frame. "We didn't speak. Not exactly. He tracked down my mother in Nottingham,"
"But how—?"
To this, Snape growled. "I'm afraid I have you to thank there, Granger. Are you so out of practice and out of touch that you didn't realise that Potter had followed you on one of your trips to the library?"
The witch coloured slightly, her cheeks turning a rosy pink, "I didn't—"
"Of course not," he interrupted her, "And what on earth were you doing playing that ridiculous time-waster in any case?" The man demanded, his eyes flashing with irritation.
"A time-waster? It's your game!"
"It is," he acknowledged, crossing his arms and leaning back to underscore the irony of his words, "and do you also imagine I drink from my own stores of poison? Simply because it was made by my own hands?"
She frowned and crossed her own arms, though her mirroring of him was reflexive and defensive. "Classifying it as poison is a bit extreme..."
"Galdrvale is beneath you, Hermione. I can't understand why you'd bother with such a thing." Snape growled with a glare in her direction.
She assessed him for several moments, before she let out an amused chuckle, startling the wizard into giving her a bewildered look. "You certainly don't want me playing, do you. Is it, possibly, because there's a certain character—an annoying swot of a bookseller—whom you wouldn't want me to know about?"
Snape's expression blackened and he looked like he was sucking a lemon, his mouth had puckered so much. "I suppose it's far too late to hope that you'd not met Hermia,"
Hermione gave him a cheeky grin and when it looked like he was about to descend into a sulk, she reached out, wincing as she bent at the torso, to grab at his hand, which she gave a squeeze.
"I'd wondered, you know? And I couldn't see that you'd given any interviews to explain her character—"
"I don't do interviews." Snape complained.
The witch snorted, "Of course you don't, miserable sod." She shook her head as her eyes settled on him with a look of extreme fondness. She squeezed his hand.
"So... is she?"
Snape gave her a long-suffering look. "Is she what?"
Hermione glared at him with mock indignation, though a smile still tugged at her lips, "Me? Is she me, you git?"
The dour wizard affected a fatuous look of extreme disinterest and turned his eyes to something across the room. "So unkind, Granger. You wound me—"
The witch smacked at his arm lightly and grinned up at him, and though he didn't smile back, there was a bit of lightness in his gaze, and, dare she hope: a genuine affection.
After their shared moment of levity, his mouth twisted with what could have been either shame or regret. "What would it mean to you if she were?" he asked eventually.
She grabbed up his hand in her own once more and tugged, bringing his eyes to meet her own. The witch swallowed. "I... I'd be flattered, I think? If... if she were modeled after me, what would that have meant to you, Severus?"
She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know the answer, but after some six months of separation, a shared child, and a fraught reunion, she couldn't bear to endure any further obfuscation. It had been months of wondering, of looking at the small sprite of the curly-haired Lady Hermia and speculating, wishing that maybe... just maybe... he still thought of her as fondly as she thought of him...
Snape's mouth twisted and his eyes tore away from her own, looking down at the tips of his boots as was his wont when uncomfortable. "It would mean..." he paused, but his fingers squeezed her own, though for whose comfort, his own or hers, it wasn't clear, "it would mean that since our paths have crossed once more you have not ever been far from my thoughts."
It wasn't precisely a declaration of undying love. Nor even was it indicative of any particular affection. If taken literally, not being far from the man's thoughts could just as easily meant that he ruminated daily on his hatred for her, and yet Hermione felt she could wave all of the possible interpretations away and see what Snape was really trying (or perhaps trying not) to say.
It was entirely possible, nay, probable, that the man had gone the entire duration of his life without ever once saying the words 'I love you,' and Hermione, for all of her high-handed sensibilities and utopian fantasies knew that even if the man could by all accounts be said to love her, she may never hear the words pass his thin lips. Her hand tightened around his.
It was enough. It would be enough.
Who needed words when Snape's actions would seem to shout his truth from the rooftops?
Why had it taken her so long, lingering over the obvious parallels he had written into Hermia's character, to see the truth looking her dead in the eyes? Granted, he'd not expected her to play his game, nor to see that he had practically composed her a love letter through his characterization of the Bookseller. Yet, beyond Hermia—did she really think it meant nothing that he had gifted her a personalized iPod for Christmas; a whole library that fit in the pocket of her jeans and that had kept her from losing her mind during the demoralizing hours she had spent at Marigold House and stocking shelves at ASDA?
Did she imagine that he was a man who took women to bed casually?
Well...
Her lips twisted. In truth, she had no way of knowing anything about the man's sexual history. She supposed it was entirely possible that he did... then again, given his words to her in the NICU, he seemed to be of the mind that sex was not some indiscriminate activity to engage in. If anything, it had been her impression that their union had been out of character for the taciturn man.
They stared at one another, no words passing between them for the next few moments until the silence was interrupted by an unwelcome knock at the door.
Hermione glanced up, her face sour. "I guess that's the staff come to record his name for his birth certificate,"
"Are we in agreement about that?" Snape questioned her, his brow rising a bit.
"I like the name we chose, Severus." Hermione acknowledged, her voice low and her eyes soft. She looked to the door. "Come in!"
The door swung inward with the nurse entering unnecessarily announcing herself with a verbal, "Knock, knock!" However, it was not the company they had been expecting.
Snape glowered when he recognized the attendant from the waiting room. They'd had words while he had been cooped up in the sterile antechamber and, as a consequence, he wasn't terribly fond of the woman. But the mousy-haired muggle was, as it turned out, the least of their worries.
Close at her heels followed an imposing woman with a bouffant that had been maintained within an inch of the hair's life, looking like one could rap their knuckles against her coiffure and hear an iron clang, and a man who, by contrast, appeared as if he were being led in on a dog's lead, he followed so closely at the woman's ankle.
The woman lost no time.
"Hermione! Dear!" She rushed over to the woman lying prone on the hospital bed, grabbing up her hands and ostentatiously giving her a visible once-over. "What on earth are you doing in hospital, sweet? Your employer gave us a ring—ASDA? Really, darling?—but they wouldn't tell us what had happened, and then when we got here the nurses were of no help either," the woman harped on, giving no window for the beleaguered witch to respond.
The attendant who had shown them in scowled and backed out of the room, "I'll just be leaving then,"
Margaret paid her no heed and waved her hand in a shoo-ing motion, though she didn't even deign to glance at the irritated woman as she dismissed her. She'd yet to look at the other occupant of the room, having eyes only for Hermione, though she seemed less concerned than scandalised.
"And whyever do they have you in the maternity ward to recover? Did they run out of rooms elsewhere? I swear, Robert—they have us by the nose in taxes and yet still don't have the funds to cover adequate facilities," the big-haired woman nattered, a small sneer marring her features.
"Mum," Hermione tried to wedge into the conversation, but ultimately her bid was unsuccessful.
"Did you know they had us wait for over an hour, Hermione? An hour! And here you are—" she waved an errant hand once more and finally seemed to see Snape sitting there. "Well, who is this?" She crossed her arms over her bosom and glowered, turning back to her daughter on the bed, "Why was he allowed in to see you and we were made to wait?" Margaret demanded.
Snape rose from his chair, perhaps in order to gain back some of the power in the room. He had a few inches on Margaret Cavendish-Granger and now sought to diffuse her sense of control by sheer intimidation. It had never failed him in the past. Still, the woman seemed to be staring down her nose at the stranger, undeterred by his height or his forbidding demeanor.
"I'm sure you'll understand if we want a few moments alone with our daughter," the doctor sneered to him, her attitude dismissive. "You can come see her again when we're through."
For a moment there seemed to be a détente, where Snape was considering his words carefully. Then, after a few moments of fraught and uncomfortable silence, in which Hermione felt terror at what might proceed out of the man's mouth mount, he gave a rather wicked snaggle-toothed grin.
Margaret gave a small start. She was always put off by a bit of bad dentistry. Hermione wasn't sure whether it was the man's malocclusion or the yellowed-colour, however, which had offended her mother more.
"I think not, Mrs. Granger,"
"That's Doctor Cavendish-Granger—"
"Mmm," Snape snorted dismissively, "in any case: I will not be leaving your daughter's bedside. You see, being her husband confers certain privileges in visitation that I daresay I shan't be forfeiting."
The bald-faced pronouncement left Hermione's mother, for perhaps the first time in her life, speechless, and gawping like a dimwitted fish. Her mouth moved wordlessly for several seconds, and Hermione's father was ripening to a brilliant beet-red, his own mouth pursed into a miniscule pucker conveying his astonishment. They both surveyed the dark and imposing man before them with something approaching incomprehension, as if they'd never seen anyone quite like him before.
Truthfully, given his stature, his gravitas, his bad hygiene, his mode of dress, and the addition of a voice which was, by all accounts, incongruously in contrast to these aforementioned qualities, it was quite probable that they hadn't.
More likely than not, however, it had been the pronouncement that he had, at some point, wed their only daughter that had ultimately silenced the pair of orthodontists.
Margaret recovered herself first, her jaw canted and her brown eyes narrowed with a cast-in-iron rage.
When she spoke, her voice was like an angry tom cat's hiss. "You would dare presume—"
Snape looked bored as he interrupted her. "I'm afraid it is you who presumes, Madam."
"Doctor!"
The dark wizard shrugged carelessly, his eyes glinting with a mixture of amusement and malice. "Whatever your occupation: the fact remains that as Hermione is my wife, I was quite free to visit her at her sick-bed."
Hermione hadn't tried to speak yet. She was feeling decidedly light-headed from the sudden rush of activity, and was rather curious as to how things would proceed between Snape and her mother.
It wasn't that she was afraid of speaking her truth to the woman herself—when the older women would have permitted her to speak, at the very least—but the thought of her mother and her ex-professor cum ex-lover (and current husband? Hermione wasn't sure how she felt about that... the small twist in her stomach at the pronouncement notwithstanding) squaring off was enough to stay her desire to intervene. She glanced at her father, who was staring at the two, much as she herself was, with the sort of gape one might have seen on a spectator for some great spot of sport. He had clearly already resigned himself to allowing his wife to speak for the two of them.
The petty squabbling began in earnest and it was much as either Hermione or Robert might have expected, complete with impassioned gesticulating and Margaret daring to approach Snape near enough to begin poking the man in the chest to underscore the points she was making.
"I heard of no wedding! No groom! Last we saw Hermione, she didn't even mention she was seeing anyone!"
"It is none of my business what she tells you, Madam. If Hermione didn't wish to disclose the nature of our relationship, far be it for me to insist that you be included in our affairs,"
"What sort of man dares to marry a girl without first securing the approval of her parents—!?"
"Your daughter is scarcely a girl, she's near to thirty for Christ-sake!"
"And how old are you for that matter?" Margaret demanded, her finger jabbing into Snape's Iron Maiden tour shirt, "You look to be a good decade or more older! Though I shouldn't know it based on how you dress and comport yourself," the woman snarled, her eyes seeming to pick him apart garment by garment.
Snape's lip curled as he tugged on the bottom of his jacket to pull it back into smart order. True, he didn't exactly look like a man nearing fifty in how he dressed, but he still cut a clean figure. He was no longer required to dress professionally for his work and he'd given it up as a bad job as soon as he was no longer beholden to a reasonable code for dressing.
"Margaret, dear, perhaps Hermione did tell us something of the man—?" Robert cut in, his voice hesitant. He levied an evaluating look at Snape, whom he apparently hadn't decided upon quite yet, and glanced then at his daughter, who was lying back against her pillows with a look of long-suffering resignation.
Margaret appeared to think for a moment before a brilliant crimson blush streaked across her features. It was not, however the blush of a woman embarrassed. Rather one incensed. She looked back to Snape and locked eyes with him. "At that, perhaps she did, Robert," she said, not looking at her husband. Her next words were directed to Snape. "That's it then: who do you drive for? What company?" she questioned.
For his part, Snape appeared perplexed. He crossed his arms and glowered down his hawkish nose at the woman.
"What on earth are you yammering about?"
"For. Whom. Do. You. Drive?" Margaret bit out, her face reddening further. "Hermione hinted that she was seeing someone in transportation, I want to know what firm would deign to hire someone as insolent and rude as yourself—"
Snape let out a rather startling guffaw of laughter, though it wasn't the nice kind. It was clear he was laughing at Hermione's mother, and his mouth was twisted with cruel amusement.
"That's right! Oh, now that is a lark, isn't it, Hermione?" He turned to look at his ersatz wife, as if inviting her in on the joke, "You did say to me that they thought you were seeing a lorry driver. Why, I don't know whether to be insulted on my own behalf, Mrs. Granger, or on behalf of those in the transportation sector you so clearly hold in ill regard,"
"DOCTOR!" Margaret shrieked once more.
The wizard scoffed, his lips twisting, "Doctor, nurse, whose-it, what's-it,"
At this, Hermione had finally grown tired of the farce taking place before her eyes. She was starting to develop a headache. "Severus, this is all rather unproductive, don't you think?"
Snape's face sobered at her words, and he gave her a bit of an annoyed look, likely for having spoiled the man's fun. However, he did look once more at the Doctors Granger, and he resumed his seat, his arms crossed against his chest. His dark eyes assessed the woman standing before him.
"Your daughter is in hospital because she—"
He never managed to finish the sentence. There came another series of knocks at the door to interrupt him and all four occupants of the room turned to stare, expecting a nurse had come to tell them off for the raised voices.
That likely would have been better than who actually appeared.
As the door opened, Hermione first saw a flash of ginger hair, and then a tousled head of black cow-licks before it was thrown open the rest of the way and Mister and Mrs. Harry Potter bounded into the fracas, heedless of the tense atmosphere. Both of their eyes were wide with alarm.
Ginny's looked immediately to Hermione as she rushed to her side and grabbed up her hand. She evidently hadn't taken stock of the situation before rushing in, much as her husband was known for years earlier.
Harry, had, however, grown a great deal in the interceding years. Such that his eyes swept the room upon arrival, and were, consequently, trained upon Snape with laser focus.
As his wife fretted over his best friend, the Auror and his long-time nemesis faced off, Snape having risen once more upon the Potters' entrance.
For several seconds all that could be heard were Ginny's frantic whispers to Hermione. Her hands flew to her friend's face, turning it this way and that as she fired off rapid questions.
"What happened?! We didn't hear back from you when your shift was supposed to have ended, and when we went to ask about you to your supervisor, he told us that an amboolance had come to take you away!"
When Hermione opened her mouth to respond, Ginny interrupted her by way of more questions, "It's not the baby, is it? Oh, I told you to see a healer, Hermione! You could have gone to Maple, she'd have been happy to see you even on short notice! You look so much smaller..." she commented, her hand falling to Hermione's empty stomach for a feel, "Have they checked you? Is the baby still growing alright?"
Margaret's face blanched white as she looked between her daughter and her daughter's purported husband. "...Baby?" she questioned no one in particular. And no one answered her. For as Hermione was absorbed trying to fend off Ginny's concerned hands from prodding at her painful incision, Severus had locked eyes with Harry Potter, and neither had moved a muscle as they faced off across the room.
Harry's green eyes blazed with an unidentifiable light. It wasn't clear what he planned to do, and thus, Severus stood stock still. A rabbit bewitched by the light of a torch. Almost like he thought that if he didn't move, Harry wouldn't recognize that it was him, and his gaze would pass over the man without incident.
Unfortunately, his luck had never been that good.
Harry straightened, his legs spreading into something that Severus guessed was his battle-ready stance. "Professor Snape," Potter began, the Auror's words containing a power of conviction—like he was apprehending him for a crime. "Your death was more metaphorical than literal, I'm guessing."
Snape took a second to compose himself, his lips tightening into a grimace of dislike. "For all intents and purposes, I am dead to you, Potter."
The Auror snorted, his stance loosening. He glanced over at Ginny who was still nattering at Hermione, though the brunette witch had stopped responding and was instead watching the stand-off between Snape and Harry, her eyes wide with apprehension. She was resolutely ignoring her mother and father who had joined in questioning her over her internment in the maternity ward of the Royal London. The three jostled for her answers and none of them received anything approaching a response.
"I could maybe accept that, sir, but I'm not sure that the Ministry would,"
Snape stalked over to the younger man. They now stood nearly of a height, Snape perhaps retaining only one inch over the other wizard. He was almost certainly two stone lighter. In a physical altercation, Harry would have the advantage, possibly in a magical duel as well, as Snape hadn't had any reason to keep up with his reflexes since his ignominious retreat into muggle-dom.
"You would send me to my death, Potter?" Severus questioned, his voice whisper-soft. "You would do it, perhaps, for the second time?"
Harry's eyes flashed with annoyance and exasperation. "Get off it, Snape." He pushed at his shoulder lightly, urging the other man to back up a step and to give him more space. "I've not seen you in almost nine years, man. And I have my duties. I'd rather mention them up front then allow them to lurk like an erumpent in the room." He looked over at Hermione, his gaze calculating, and then back at his old professor once more.
"I think I can guess now who the father of Hermione's baby is. And I think I can guess how the two of you met. I don't have to like you. I don't have to get along with you. But I'd not sell you up the styx if you're responsible to her for her child. And I'd not turn you in as a Death Eater on the lamb when we both know you deserve better than that,"
Snape seemed to relax and he treated Harry to one of his signature smirks. "Never let it be said that your high-minded do-goodedness never served a man's purposes, Potter,"
"Shut up, arse. It's not for you." He looked to Hermione for a moment. "Every child needs a father. And far be it for me to make your poor mother mourn for you all over again. Believe it or not, I rather like the old gal," Harry grinned with affable mockery.
"EXCUSE ME," Margaret shouted, her hands clawed into fists. Instantly all eyes in the room turned to her and a hush fell over those assembled. "Why did no one tell me, that my daughter was to have a baby!? Who are you to be told before Robert and me? Hmm?"
She glowered at Harry and then Ginny. "I know she's been friends with you for a long time, Harry, Ginevra, but do you not think it would have been courteous to have told us that our daughter is expecting? That she'd gotten married?!" Her voice was rising with her mounting frustration and hysteria.
It was now the Potters' turn to frown at one another. "Married?" Ginny asked, peering at her friend now who was doing her level best to sink into her starched-white pillows. "When she left for work she wasn't married, to the best of my knowledge..." Ginny's brown eyes widened as they landed on Hermione's newly adorned ring finger.
"When did you have time to go off and elope, 'Mione?"
The older witch merely shook her head, her mouth set in an overwhelmed grimace as her eyes ping-ponged between all of the residents of the room, finally settling on Severus. The look she gave him seemed to beg him for his intercession.
"You didn't know little pea was married either?" Robert asked the room at large, his voice wavering with uncertainty and hurt. He'd hardly uttered a word up until that point and his eyes were trained on his daughter. They were glossy with unshed tears.
Hermione met his gaze after tearing away from Snape's. "Daddy, please—I'm so sorry... you wouldn't have understood... you wouldn't have listened—none of you would have listened," she nearly begged, her voice irresolute and quivering with emotion.
All at once she desperately wanted to be alone. Alone except, perhaps, the small two-pound infant she'd had to leave in a room up the hall. She heaved with a sob and shook violently.
Margaret rounded on her daughter, her eyes alight with righteous indignation. "I don't understand now, Hermione Jean!" She all but stomped her foot. "You leave us that night at dinner back in February, without so much as a goodbye or a fare thee well, and months later we get a call from your employer—and really dear!? A supermarket!?—while we were on holiday, might I add—and rush back to London to see you in hospital, to find out that you'd hid not only a husband," She spat the word with a glare at Snape, "but our grandchild as well! How could you—"
While the woman ranted, Hermione's eyes had sought Snape's and they pled with him to interrupt. He had begun to advance on the irate woman yelling at her daughter when he noticed a shift in his pretend wife's gaze.
Her eyes had fixed themselves on a point past Severus' right ear, her pupils dilated almost to the edges of her brown irises, in spite of the abundance of light in the room.
Snape approached the bed.
"Hermione?" he interposed, waving a hand in front of her face. She didn't blink.
"The way you've treated us is shameful, Hermione! Completely unconscionable—"
"Shut up!" Snape snapped over his shoulder, gripping Hermione's shoulders in both hands and squeezing.
"— Excuse me!? I'll not have you telling me to shut up, you rude pillock—"
"SHUT UP!" Snape snarled this time, spittle flying from his mouth, "SHE'S SEIZING!" His hands scoured the hospital bed for the call button, almost blindly, pressing it several times in quick succession in his haste.
An alarm sounded distantly, though he scarcely registered it, he was too preoccupied with lying Hermione back and pressing her into the bed firmly as the tremors began to wrack her body once more.
It was only moments later that a team of nurses and doctors rushed the room and chivvied the visitors out. An orderly following behind directed them to the waiting room, where the disaffected loved ones regrouped. A grim silence settled upon them as their thoughts turned, collectively, to the brunette witch struggling for her life down the hall.
"Blackout, blackout
I hear them calling
Blackout, blackout
They're calling for your blood
They'll never get enough
Not until you blackout, blackout
Hear them calling"
"Blackout" (reprise) – AVIVA