"Welcome to the wasteland
Just another broken man
Tangled in the words that I cannot say
Living just to say goodbye
Save me from my selfish pride
Can you see the words written on my face?"
"I Can Hold a Grudge Like Nobody's Business" – Adam Jensen
The unnerving silence lasted for only some ten minutes. Ten minutes where five pairs of eyes snuck surreptitious glances at one another from beneath furrowed brows.
The doctors Granger had stationed themselves near a hot beverage vending machine in the corner. Robert's face was somber where his wife's was stricken with a mixture of anger and obvious fear.
The Potters took chairs in the very middle of the wall, Ginny's crossed arms resting on her knees where she'd doubled over with worry, and Harry's own arm resting over the back of her chair, his frame hunched over hers to provide solace and protection.
Snape was alone. He paced the length of the cramped, too-white room with measured steps, his black leather boots clicking rhythmically against the chipped linoleum floors. He looked near murderous, his brows having drawn down in a clear demonstration of his stricken emotional state.
All five seemed loathe to intrude on one another, or perhaps fearful.
As perhaps might have been predicted, it was Snape's presence which drew the most curious gazes.
Harry's eyes tracked him as he made his circuitous route around the groupings of metal chairs with something like marveling curiosity. Ginny's expression was one of cross irritation.
Robert hadn't glanced much at his purported son-in-law, as he was too busy whispering furiously to his wife—whose gaze was promising cold-blooded murder to the man—in a likely attempt to diffuse Margaret's ire.
It was Hermione's mother who broke the fragile peace. She, perhaps, felt safe to do so from her careful distance of five meters away.
"I hope you're pleased with yourself." She sniped, her voice carrying with a faint echo about the chamber.
Snape halted in his tracks, but didn't turn to look at Hermione's mother. His back was to them all, but it was clear for all to see from the white-knuckled clenching of his right fist at his side how he felt at being addressed in such a way.
After ten seconds he resumed his pacing, seemingly ignoring Margaret's unkind overture.
She was undeterred.
"I don't know what you did to convince our daughter to ruin her life for you, but whatever it was, I'm sure we can undo it."
Snape, again, said nothing, but by the hunch of his shoulders he was losing patience rapidly.
The Potters turned to one another and shared a look. They recognized his percolating fury from a decade past, and didn't anticipate that the results would be pretty.
"Marriages can be annulled," Margaret blithely continued, "particularly if it wasn't a sacrament undertaken before our own congregation." She nattered, perhaps thinking of the parish all Cavendish family members had traditionally married in.
"And as for the baby; if she's suffering through seizures coming from complications, I'm sure we can find grounds for a termination," the woman sneered, her tooth bared in a nasty snarl, "she can't be too far along, after all."
Ginny gasped in her chair, her eyes wide and horrified as she gawped at the muggle woman. She rapidly began turning red with fury as she struggled to find words adequate to express her outrage.
She needn't have bothered, ultimately. For Snape beat her to it.
The man, still turned away from the other four, let loose with a cruel, mirthless laugh.
"I see you have it all well in hand, Mrs. Granger,"
"That's Doc—"
"It's really quite tiresome that you continue to insist." Snape let out a theatrical sigh, clearly meant to offend. "I couldn't be less bothered by whatever form of address you would prefer. Why I should extend any polite protocols toward a woman intent on killing my son is rather beyond me, admittedly."
He turned on his heel to face them, and as he did so, Harry almost felt as if he could imagine the swirl of robes about his ankles. Of course, the man was wearing none. He was dressed almost like an aging music producer of some sort, complete with black jeans, a tour t-shirt that appeared nearly new, and a stiff, expensive-looking leather jacket.
At least his boots were the same as they ever were. They were possibly the exact pair he'd worn to stalk the corridors of Hogwarts. They certainly sounded the same.
"Your son?" Margaret sneered, "So they went ahead and determined the sex? Seems a bit premature to me, given that the baby's clearly not doing well—"
Snape's face twisted into a grimace which was quickly masked by a look of deep loathing. "Finally, you've spoken a bit of truth, doctor." He stepped closer, now only two meters away from the woman. "Premature. And he is decidedly not well at the moment. As for termination? I think they'd be quite unwilling to rip into pieces a child whom they've already expended so much energy to keep alive. I daresay even muggles aren't barbaric enough to murder an infant in cold blood,"
"It's not murder," Margaret protested, her voice uncertain, "he probably can't even survive outside the womb yet— what is she? Twenty, twenty-three weeks perhaps? At the most?"
Snape stared at her mutely for a second, evaluating the woman before him. "I believe you are operating under a misapprehension, Madam. Hermione isn't pregnant at all. Not anymore. Our son has been born and is being held in some manner of stasis-chamber up the hall. He was born at twenty-nine weeks, and was quite resolved to demonstrate that he is, in fact, determined to live."
A shuttering sigh interrupted the stand-off. Ginny had gasped in relief and was now staring down at her hands with an expression of what looked to be muted joy. Her freckled hands were shaking.
"The baby's going to be okay, then, Professor?" she broke in, her voice wavering.
Snape turned his sharp, eagle-eyed stare on the ginger woman who was looking up at him with hope in her expectant gaze. He nodded. It was a jerky, singular motion, but it was clear, to Harry at least, that the man was only barely reigning himself in at this point.
"Our son is—according to his doctors, at least—going to be just fine." His thin mouth twitched.
"I... I'm glad," Ginny said to the man.
Snape looked uncomfortable as he turned his eyes toward the linoleum floor. "Yes, well... I feel he would benefit from the addition of a strength potion to his regimen. Perhaps a nutritive potion too—" Snape appeared ponderous for a moment. He straightened again after a fashion and glanced at the Potters where they huddled together in their chairs. "My thanks, Mrs. Potter.
Harry's wife seemed to be calming since she had heard that Snape and Hermione's child was in good stead. "We didn't know who the father was—I suppose that's obvious, given we didn't know you were still alive, Professor—"
Snape waved a hand in a distracted fashion, "You needn't call me that—"
Ginny continued speaking over him, however, not in any way discouraged, "When she comes back to stay with us, you can rest assured that your son will be well taken care of,"
Snape started violently, his black eyes widening in obvious upset. He looked rather like a spooked horse. "I beg your pardon? My son will under no circumstances be going home with you, Potter," he growled, a peek of yellowed canine exposed under his curled lip.
The red-haired witch glared back, used to Snape's foul moods and not unnerved in the least. "We cared for Hermione since before she knew she was expecting! I don't think it'd be good for her to go back with you, at least right now—"
Snape's next words were deadly soft. "Whyever not? Please, do tell why you think it should be you who gets to raise our son,"
"I'd be interested to know, as well," Margaret piped in from her corner. The woman stepped forward, her court heels clacking slightly on the floor. "As the boy's grandparents, I should think if there's any question as to where he'll be going, it'd be home with us!"
Snape snarled at the woman, "What part of 'married' do you fail to understand, Granger?" He demanded, falling back on the farce he'd concocted in order to protect his claim over his issue.
This time it was Harry's turn to butt in. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "The entire premise, really. I think we mentioned that when Hermione left for work this morning she didn't have a ring on her finger and didn't seem like she thought you'd be involved and now we turn up to visit her in hospital and you've supposedly wed in the meantime. I think that deserves an explanation."
"I don't owe you a damn thing, Potter! My debt to you, in whatever form it took, has been paid and then some!" The dark wizard ground out. The lines around his mouth were strained with all too evident tension. "At the heart of the issue is this: no one will be bringing that child home excepting myself and my wife," he drawled with a bit of a smirk, "anyone else wanting to petition for custody may take it up with the courts."
At near enough the same moment, Doctor Cavendish-Granger and Harry interjected with:
"You can count on it!"
And: "I'm not sure that's in your best interest, Professor."
Snape surveyed them both with a raised eyebrow. "As I understand that you're in no rush to turn me into the authorities, Potter, I doubt you'd do such a thing. You already acknowledged that the child is better off with a father,"
Harry drew his mouth into a tight line, but he did nod in affirmation. "I did. Gin," he said, turning to look at his wife, "If he and Hermione have something, whether or not they picked it back up just recently or if it's been ongoing, we don't have a right to insert ourselves into the middle of it,"
When Ginny looked as if she'd like to protest, Harry squeezed her knee gently, "I know you only want the best for Hermione, love." Harry stared hard at his former professor, evaluating him, for the first time, in light of all he'd learned about him from the memories the man had shared.
With those additional facts about his past and Harry's nine years as an adult (three of them spent as a father), he was treated to his first impression of Severus Snape as a man, and not as the imposing authority figure of his youth.
Hermione could have done worse. Much worse, he thought, remembering some of the domestic situations he'd been obliged to involve himself with since becoming an Auror with a shudder.
Green eyes bored into the glittering black sea of Snape's own.
"He'll take good care of them." Whether Harry was saying this to Ginny or Snape, however, was open to interpretation.
Margaret stepped forward, her heels together and toes apart and her two fists planted firmly on her hips. "That still leaves me," she declared. "I don't like a thing about what I'm hearing about you, sir!" She said with a derisive sneer.
"These two keep calling you 'Professor,' which leads me to think you were once my daughter's teacher—"
"He was," Harry and Ginny said almost in unison.
"—and Harry keeps talking about you as if you have a criminal past! Mark my words, my solicitor will have your nads out over an open flame—"
Snape barked out a laugh and drew up to his full height (though it was perhaps only an inch or so more than Margaret Cavendish-Granger's own, she was a tall woman), and crossed his arms as he pulled upon the full draw of his not unimpressive personality to try and cow the woman before him.
"You'll find nothing to indict me in the muggle world, Madam, of that I can assure you." He smirked, a rather nasty look coming into his eyes. "In fact, you seem to be rather mistaken about the position I hold in society relative to yourself; I'm no mere washed up academic, woman. Nor am I a petty, criminal low-life. I have access to a whole team of top-shelf solicitors, and I know for a fact you haven't a legal leg to stand on."
Margaret turned red, her bouffant swaying as she shook with tight-lipped rage. "Then I'll turn you in to your own damned Ministry, myself!"
Snape's whole demeanor had frosted over, to the point that Harry was nearly surprised that icicles weren't forming underneath the man's hawkish nose and hanging from his lank hair.
"I don't think you realize how unwise it was to broadcast your intentions with such impunity, Mrs. Granger. I am given to understand that you have spent a good deal of time under a memory spell before; I didn't expect you would be so eager to return to a state of, dare I say, oblivion." He snarled, his voice so cutting as to castrate.
At this, Harry stood and stalked over to the periphery of where the two were arguing. "That'll be enough, Snape. I can look the other way for a few things that I've seen here today, but I won't have you going around threatening muggles with magic. Particularly not these muggles,"
Snape pivoted to glower down at the perennial thorn in his side. "And I suppose you missed the part where she first threatened me?"
The Auror merely frowned at the man, unperturbed. He was well acquainted with the permanent chip on the man's shoulder. Snape didn't expect fair treatment in anything, and admittedly, he had reasons for assuming he'd be ill done by.
"You know I heard it all." Harry turned to Doctor Cavendish-Granger, "Doctor, I realize that the Professor's not exactly your first pick of father for your grandson, and likely not as a partner to your daughter—"
"Husband," Snape insisted.
The younger wizard merely shot him a warning look before he continued speaking. "If you say so.
"In any case: things could get very messy, very quickly, if you report him. And not only for Snape: It would be quite easy for the Ministry to establish that Hermione was well aware that Severus Snape was still alive based on her fraternisation with his mother. There is every chance that if you report on this to our Ministry that Hermione will be tried and found guilty as well."
Margaret huffed and tapped the toe of her shoe impatiently, "Fraternisation? Who are these people that she would be involving herself with wanted criminals and the like?"
"Hermione's relationship with Eileen—the Professor's mother, that is—was entirely above board." Harry stated, "At least initially. They met when she was helping to arrange accommodations for her in a wizarding assisted living community, and the fact that it was Hermione who primarily served as her case worker will have been well-documented. Beyond that, however, she formed a close friendship with the woman, and," he looked to the dark wizard brooding to his right, "may I assume, learned that you hadn't exactly kicked the cauldron, after all?"
"You have a way with words, Potter. I am deeply moved." The man drawled, moving a hand to clutch in his shirt where it rested over his heart.
"Shut up."
Snape seemed to sober. Rather unexpectedly, he gave a short dip of his head to the younger man and spun to take one of the seats that lined the wall, leaving several chairs between himself and Ginny Potter. He was, as ever, an island.
Seeing that the taciturn wizard had decided to remove himself from the arena, Harry turned back to Hermione's parents, aiming at them an expression he reserved for only his most difficult interviews and meetings: one of open, and utterly facile, solicitousness.
"Under these circumstances, Doctors, I think you'll see how it's in your daughter and grandson's best interest not to intervene—"
"He," Margaret pointed a manicured finger in Snape's direction, "keeps insisting they're married, Mr. Potter! I still see no reason to accept that this is even true, given you and your wife's own uncertainty." She actually looked rather petulant, "I can't fathom why he should have the privilege to make decisions for her care before we should as her parents!
"And if I am to understand that she may be found guilty, how would that even impact her past what it has already? She can't find a job in your world, she admitted as much to us several months ago. And it's gotten so bad that she's had to stay with you and your wife! Our brilliant, genius of a daughter is stocking shelves for a living! Perhaps they'll exile her, I don't know—but she can have a better life in our world as it is. I hardly think it would matter at this point!"
Harry gave a deep sigh. "You've made some good points, she has had to stay with us—"
"All the more reason to believe that this marriage," she shot an acid look at Snape who glared back, "is a sham!"
Harry shrugged, as if to acknowledge that she may well be correct. "I can't speak to that, but I can say this: if your daughter is found guilty of aiding and abetting a known Death Eater, her sentence will be substantial: and that little boy will grow up without a father or a mother,"
"What are you saying?" Margaret questioned, her voice waspish.
"I am saying that the sentence for carrying a Dark Mark on your arm is a swiftly delivered death, and that Hermione's own involvement may earn her the same. If not that then a lengthy stay in a wizarding prison that's so miserable that she may well wish that they had sentenced her to a quick demise."
After delivering this sobering pronouncement, Harry's attention was attracted by a bit of a shudder in his peripheral vision.
Snape's form had collapsed on itself, which Harry thought an odd sight. He'd not seen the man so affected by anything except in his memories.
Throughout their time at school, the only emotions the wizard had worn had been ones of anger and acrimony. To see him now, bracing his long, spindly hands on his knees, gripping the denim between his clenched fists, his face cast downward in obvious pain, was worrisome.
If Snape was in any way moved from his propensity for stoicism, it could not bode well.
The man finally broke the silence that had arisen in the wake of his convulsive, and all too visible, agitation.
"Quiet." He demanded, his voice firm even as he looked as if he could be knocked over by a strong wind. "All of you—just... just be quiet.
"We're all here arguing over Hermione. Arguing over her like she's not in there," he ground out, pointing to the set of swinging doors that led back into the ward, "seizing... failing... at this very moment! We can argue until we're blue in the face. You can oppose me: as a person, as a husband—yes, a husband, Madam!— as a father, but if she even wakes up again I'll be thankful—if she even gets to hold Marcus... even just once..."
It was so quiet that it would have been possible to detect the near ultrasonic squeaking of a pygmy puff. A cough sounded. When Harry looked around to determine the origin it seemed to have come from Hermione's father.
"Marcus?" He asked, peering at Snape.
Snape rallied and turned toward the man with a snaggle-toothed snarl, "Our son! Our tiny, beautiful, fragile son, who has never been held by his mother! Who is now resting in that pod, hooked up to God knows how many different varieties of rubbish muggle potionry! Who may never nurse at her breast! But it's more important to you that we all sit here, staking our claims over her, tugging her back and forth amongst ourselves as if it should be up to any of us..."
Margaret turned to him and nearly hissed in annoyance, "And I suppose it's up to you? Oh, purported husband?"
Snape growled, his eyes turning flinty. A look Harry remembered well and didn't welcome seeing again. "Nothing is up to me—nothing has been, nor will be—but were I to be so blessed by fate—by God or whomever—to be entrusted with that woman? With her happiness, her soundness of mind and body? By Merlin, you can bet I'll not waste my time further playing tug-of-war over her as if it's up to me where she goes." He looked at his hands.
"Anywhere... anywhere but Azkaban. If it is your desire to threaten to turn me in, at the expense of your daughter's freedom, and perhaps even her life... well. I shan't pursue my claim, such that it is.
"If I am to consider Hermione—to consider Marcus—under my protection? Far be it for me to endanger them by association." The man swallowed as he looked back at his boots.
He contemplated them for a moment before continuing on in a mutter that Harry wasn't certain he'd meant for anyone else to hear: "'What boons the Gods may grant you for your valour, may be summarily recalled as a consequence of hubris.'"
Harry frowned in consternation. "Is that a reference to something, Professor?" His eyes drifted around the group where, ultimately, they came to rest on Robert, whose face had grown animated with surprise.
"Would that be...? That's a quote from Thegn Hyge the Humble! From Galdrvale—"
Margaret pivoted to pin her husband with a look of pure acid, "Robert," she hissed, "not now! Not that stupid game."
Snape had also looked up in surprise at the interjection from the mild-mannered orthodontist. His eyes had narrowed. "Not from Galdrvale. It's mine. I wrote it—that's my line of script that I wrote into the game I've been working on for eight years."
"So, it was you," Harry began, with an accusing look, but before he could finish, he was interrupted by the muggle man, whose jaw had dropped in astonishment, and whose eyes were strangely alight, with an expression that seemingly approached something approximating awe.
"So, you...! Wait, hold on—"
The man's wife rounded on him once more. "Not now, Robert!" She very nearly snarled, obviously trying to cow the man into quiescence.
Yet, for once the man held up a hand to his wife.
"No, Mags, this is important! Let me speak,"
Amazingly, the woman did back down, perhaps unused to her husband ever asserting himself so strongly, though she didn't fall back without a defiant mutter. Nearly a stage whisper. Loud enough for all to hear, but under her breath all the same. "Don't know what could be so important about a bloody computer game..."
"You're the writer for Galdrvale." Robert stated the fact with bald confidence, his blue eyes shining with curiosity. He acted for all the world like he'd not heard his wife's passive aggressive commentary.
"I just admitted to as much, yes." Snape sneered back, his mouth twisted in an expression of cruel mockery.
Or perhaps it was of pained irony... Harry couldn't be sure.
Robert nodded, and glanced around at those assembled, looking from his wife, to Harry, and then even to Ginny before he attempted to explain: "The developers, the artists—all are named in the credits. The story writer is famously anonymous..."
His wife huffed in annoyance, "So how do you even know he's telling the truth? Maybe he just plays the stupid game like you do."
Hermione's father shook his head, though he seemed deep in thought over something. He hesitated, but eventually began to spell out his thoughts aloud for all to hear. "You don't get it, Mags... The new questline, begun after the Christmas event—there's a brand-new character, Lady Hermia... she's... she's our daughter, Mags."
He paused, thinking some more, "Even down to her obstinance and high-handedness... but also," he extended a hand and began ticking off his fingers as he began his list, "she favors a pink knitted tunic, one of the quests early on is to find berries for the dye. She has a beastly tortoiseshell cat as her constant companion—a cat that demands to be fed steak. Whenever the player is able to catch up with her, she's hawking books at you that she can inexplicably fit in her Mary Poppins-style bottomless bag! She... she's depicted as partly divine in the game—her hair is opined on by other characters as being a halo made of springs and corkscrews. Birds nest in it—"
Margaret frowned, her nose wrinkling. "Sound's none too flattering!" she complained, appearing offended.
Robert grimaced and shot a bit of a glare at Snape, who had the good grace to bow his head. The tips of his ears were nearly all that was visible—and they were, curiously, turning a rosy shade of pink.
"Well... no... but the point is she's unreachable—always being summoned away by a bit of evil magic, constantly she's fighting it and fighting the arcane powers like it's her destiny to do so..." he looked to Snape, as if seeking his agreement, and, receiving none, continued without the man's approval, "and perhaps it is... after all, I'm not the writer, I'd not know. But, Mags—the player... the player is besotted with Lady Hermia, and that's not me embellishing: it's clear from your dialogue options. The player is meant to be understood as half in love with her."
Snape spoke from behind the protective curtain of his greasy hair, "Yes, only half." He drawled, his voice illuminated with sardonic inflection.
No one spoke, for the other four were all staring at the man with varying degrees of shock or, in Margaret's case, irritation.
The dark wizard heaved a heavy sigh, redolent with melodrama. "Let us hope that she is more a Hermia than the far crueler name you gave her—Hermione—would suggest... lest I, cast as her Leontes, cost her both her son and her livelihood..."
Hermione's mother crossed her arms and rolled her eyes with near equal levels of theatrics. "Oh, for the love of—! She wasn't named after that damned play! She was named for Hermione Baddelay, a favourite actress of ours! And what would her name mean anyway? No one is predestined by the sodding name their parents gave them,"
To their evident surprise, it was Ginny who spoke next, from her position seated by the wall. "Well, actually, Mrs. Granger, it's a bit of a superstition in the wizarding world that the name you give your child is enormously significant... but I'm in agreement with you—I think it's mad to think it's any sort of deciding factor in what happens," she finished with a small shrug.
Two seats down, Snape could be heard snarling under his breath. "And 'what's in a name,'"
"Oh, shut up, you!" Margaret demanded, her brown eyes flashing at Snape with malice and obvious annoyance. The woman's lips had thinned and her hair, normally so well trained, was frizzing out in a halo around her bouffant, evidently having reached its tolerance for containment.
"Wizards and witches..." Ginny began again, looking at Margaret with a sort of long-suffering patience, "when we name our children, I think we're on the lookout for a kind of tragic irony. It's why I imagine there won't be anyone called Thomas in the next batch of children... possibly for a hundred years or more."
Harry chuckled a bit, thinking on his sons. "Hell, people thought we were mad for naming Albus the way we did—"
When he looked up, he saw that Snape had pinned him with his black-eyed glare. "You are mad for that, Potter. Albus Severus?! What on earth were you thinking?"
"I was thinking, sir, that it would be a good way to honor your sacrifices—" Harry replied with cool asperity.
Snape crossed his arms and pinned Harry with a rather petulant glare. "You're just asking for it with either of those names."
"You know Snape, from all we've heard about you over the years, I'd imagined you'd have been a cooler customer than you're proving to be." Hermione's father mused, his tone thoughtful.
"After Hermione woke us up in Australia, she told us all about the end of the war. I wouldn't have thought you'd have been afraid of anything so mundane as an unfortunate name."
"I fear nothing so much as I do irony, Mr. Granger." Snape muttered to his feet, "It can take the most benign forms, but nothing underscores a man's own foolishness and hubris more than when the fates decide to turn on him in such a fashion. It is a divine punishment, irony is. It is just desserts."
Harry stared at the man, feeling a wellspring of sympathetic sorrow. Yet still, he hesitated before he ultimately spoke of his commiseration. "I think I understand, Professor."
"Don't call me that, Potter." Snape ordered. Though his tone was rather mild by his normal standards. It lacked much of his customary snark and vitriol.
"Irony, Potter, is one of the bitterest potions. It is not that I fear being made a liar. Nay. I fear being shown to be the fool. In any case Mr. Granger, I challenge you to be a 'cool customer' with your son hooked up to a bunch of muggle machines. Machines that have to breathe for him. Receiving muggle potions through his cord—that should still be attached to his mother— looking... looking so damned tiny that it shouldn't even be possible that he's alive."
If Harry hadn't seen it once before in the memory of Snape grieving over his own mother, he'd not have recognized the signs of the man's deep distress. Yet given his previous exposure, it now seemed to him that Snape may have been beginning to hyperventilate.
The man rocked, so subtle that one had to stare quite hard to make it out, back and forth, his pale fingers gripping the material of his black jeans so tightly that his knuckles were a pale and bloodless white.
No one spoke. Even the Grangers seemingly had realized the very real peril that their daughter and new grandson faced, and the facts had evidently cowed them into quiescence.
Ginny, bless her heart, who had the talent of reading a room and the people in it with far more finesse than her husband, was the first to venture to speak. She swallowed audibly and looked at Snape's quaking form. "What did you and Hermione name him, Prof... Snape? His full name?"
Margaret sniffed, though it seemed sad rather than the offended snorts she'd been offering before, and answered for the man. "He already said the boy's name is Marcus—"
"Please Mrs. Granger," Harry's wife interrupted, "I wanted to know from Snape what his full name is,"
The man in question's strangled voice came before there could be any further quarreling. "Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius Snape. Hermione insisted."
Robert frowned, and seemed to be considering the name carefully. "Hermione's not much of a classicist, as far as I remember," he said, at length.
Snape shook his head, his hair whipping from side to side, so stringy as to be rope-like in its movement. "No. She insisted he have my name. Before you were to be upset over it. She was adamant." The man was now glaring down at the tips of his shoes as if they'd personally wronged him in some way, "Who was I to say no—" he bit out, "perhaps I'm a greedy bastard to accept so easily, but that... That's my boy. He's mine! Fuck it all...and fuck anyone who has something to say about it—he's my son!"
By the end of his short diatribe, Snape was snarling with as much furor and passion as Harry had ever seen. It rivaled the anger he'd witnessed only once from the man before: when Sirius Black had escaped in Harry's third year. The Professor, usually so staid and controlled, had been nearly choked with his rage.
"Did you name him that expecting him to die?" Robert ventured, swallowing audibly. He seemed not to take Snape's anger personally, and was now, evidently, acting as the voice of reason for the two Grangers—his own perspective evidently being more sympathetic to the situation than his wife's.
Snape snorted and shook his head, his thin lips twisting into something that approached a grin... or a grimace. "No."
He gave a near convulsive shudder, letting out a heavy stuttering sigh of breath. "God knows I should fear the irony of that particular name, above all." His fingers had laced together and he was now twisting them in a display of obvious agitation.
"He who coined the phrase 'Memento Mori,'" the dark wizard uttered, soto voce. "but no... my son will die one day."
There was a collective, and rather scandalised gasp that worked its way through the group, each of them staring at Snape with varying degrees of horror.
"Hopefully," he added, holding a hand up to forestall any further commentary on the choice of name, "hopefully many years from now. Hopefully, as old and grey as Albus Dumbledore was. But in giving him that name, it was my wish for him to have the wisdom to know as much, and to live the biggest life he could... for an infant that weighs something like 1000 grams at birth." Snape let loose with a self-deprecating rumble of a chuckle. It sounded bleak.
"I spent twenty years in thrall to a madman who did everything in his power to thwart Death, and in service to another megalomaniac who spent some fifty years of his youth chasing the same delusion." Snape looked at Harry, whose confusion must have showed on his face. "The Hallows, Potter? It seems to be an affliction particular to our kind—indeed, magic makes many things that should be impossible, possible. But one day we all must answer the call to the great beyond."
The pronouncement landed rather as well as a lead zeppelin. Though Harry could understand and agree with the assessment of the wizarding world's shortcomings, from the strenuous objections coming from the other three quarters of those attending Snape's words, they clearly either didn't approve of the sentiment or didn't quite fathom the true horrors that resulted from chasing immortality.
Margaret's objections rose loudest. Her voice was, by far, the most shrill and forceful. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Mister Snape," She sneered, "but from what I remember of what Hermione told us about you—you're supposed to be dead yourself! Was it too hard for you to take your own advice?"
Snape rolled his black eyes, his expression sour. "There is a world of difference between using black magicks and deals with Death himself to extend one's life and managing to save one's life through a combination of judiciously applied healing potions and intentional preparation for the worst." His arms were crossed as he squared off with his mother-in-law, though he remained seated, even as she attempted to loom over him in her heels.
"And our daughter—did she know you were alive this whole time?"
"Hermione only discovered I was alive this past autumn. She did not prevaricate when she would have told you of my demise. Misleading though it was."
Margaret looked ripe to tear her hair out from the roots in aggravation. "Then how is it that you end up married!? And to your former student, no less—have you no shame?" She cried, clearly furious.
Ginny had turned in her seat to look at her former professor and headmaster as well, her brown eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"I know she wasn't married this morning, Professor. And when we found out about the pregnancy she certainly didn't seem to be under the impression that you were going to be involved in the process. None of our recent conversations about the baby included you in her plans—"
Snape shifted in his seat, though his eyes and face betrayed nothing. His face had closed up like a high-security prison under lockdown, and his posture was now as straight and unyielding as a steel beam.
"I believe that's none of your business, Mrs. Potter. You mentioned this once already, and we weren't inclined to explain earlier, either. When and how we married is our own affair, as are the circumstances surrounding Marcus' conception,"
"Granted, she didn't tell me much, but she'd made it sound like a one-night sort of deal." Harry's wife was fishing now, but from what he knew of the headstrong witch, she wouldn't leave it alone until the matter was resolved—at least in her estimation and to her satisfaction.
But in the end Snape didn't have to answer. In the next moment, the clock struck the hour where guests were no longer welcome and the visiting room attendants chose to evict those visitors who weren't related by marriage.
Snape gave them all a parting wave and a rather smarmy grin, and Harry and Ginny were treated to Margaret's impassioned ranting as they all exited the hospital, resolved to reappear first thing in the morning.
"You got me actin' like the old me
But you don't even know me
Can I get a witness?
'Cause I can hold a grudge like nobody's business
Seein' double vision
Show me what you got and I'll show what you're missing"
"I Can Hold a Grudge Like Nobody's Business" (reprise) – Adam Jensen
A/N: Y'all. Please don't me about how NHS hospitals work. (Or actually, do. I would love to know for later fics lmao). I fully acknowledge that I may be wrong about one or more aspects of the room situation/how waiting times/visitation work(s), etc. I'm trying to piece it together from speaking to people who work in healthcare (though they're from the US and Europe. Thank you Nocturn and Serena!) and researching from NHS websites, but it hasn't given me a clear image. Consequently: I'm not exactly sure what the real policy is for NHS maternity care and I've simply done my best to make it believable enough to suit my story. It's rather a small part of the whole. Mea culpa if I'm completely wrong.
As ever, I appreciate you all so much. Thank you for reading and reviewing, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story.