Chapter 13: Honesty

A/N: Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, and Enjoyable Holidays to all:) Extra chapter, as promised.

Severus Snape had avoided alcohol, as much as he could, for nearly eighteen years. At first because of his position as a spy, then because he'd been on the run with Draco... And then, after a short intermission, because the last time he'd had a drink, he'd put a student up the duff.

That same student had now driven him back to the bottle. With suitable caution, naturally... but one smallish brandy wasn't going to have him chasing female students down the corridors. He could get a similar effect from a potion, if he chose, but he had no intention of going all the way back up to the hospital wing, and it seemed pointless to spend hours brewing a mild relaxant when there was a bottle of good brandy right there.

He slouched in front of the fire, sipping his brandy slowly as Akilah dozed in his lap. Hermione Granger. For six years a mere cipher, an auxiliary of Potter. The custodian of all two of the trio's working brain-cells. A shrill voice attached to an incessantly waving hand. During the war she'd become something more - a skilled aide in healing, a mediocre but dedicated soldier, someone he could rely on to keep her head when those around them started to panic.

Now she was wreaking as much havoc with his fiercely controlled emotions as all four of the Marauders, and without even doing it deliberately so he could hate her properly.

"Severus?"

He looked up to find Draco standing in the doorway. "Is something the matter?"

"No, not really. I just got sick of hanging around with the two third-years who are my only current company in the common room. They both seem to think I'm going to tear their throats out the minute they take their eyes off me." Draco shrugged. "I can go, if you'd rather have the place to yourself... or I could make tea."

Tea sounded good. Something soothing and warm, to take away the burn of the brandy. "Tea would be acceptable. I am simply... tired."

"Breaking a curse halfway through breakfast will do that, I suppose." Draco moved over to the tea service, frowning critically. "You've been drinking plain Ceylon again."

"I like plain Ceylon." Severus scowled. "It's strong enough to wake me up in the morning."

Akilah stretched, digging her claws into his stomach, and then jumped off his lap to go sniff Draco's legs. Draco looked down at her a bit nervously. "Er... I'm reformed," he said, sensibly addressing her directly instead of pretending she was just an animal. Amazing, he'd actually learned something from Hagrid. "Please don't hold the former bad tendencies against me."

"She doesn't hold it against me, and I've killed far more people than you have. Perhaps she's defective. A Kneazle lacking in an ability to detect the unsavoury and the untrustworthy."

Akilah purred, standing on her back paws to claw Draco's knees hopefully. He grinned, and bent down to scratch behind her ears. "She knows this is where you keep the milk, doesn't she?"

"I gave some to her this morning, yes." The quiet, commonplace conversation was settling him more than the alcohol had. After months of seeing nobody else, Draco's company was... comfortable. "Give her more, if she wants it... Hagrid thinks she needs building up."

Draco poured a little milk into a saucer and set it down on the hearth. Akilah immediately lost all interest in both humans. "Where did she come from? She wasn't here yesterday."

"She was a Christmas gift of sorts." Severus shrugged, sipping his brandy again. "She seems to think her chances of surviving the winter are better within the castle than without."

"She probably senses your soft spot for unwanted strays," Draco said, turning back to the tea things. "I was... wondering. Is Granger all right?"

"Yes. Shaken but unhurt." Severus quirked an eyebrow, looking at his godson thoughtfully. "Still fancy her, do you?"

Draco blushed. "Yes, actually. I... er... gave her a Christmas present."

Both eyebrows were up now. "Really? What?"

"A nice set of robes. Golds and browns... she really has to stop wearing blue. The pink and green are all right, but she just can't do blue. Or purple." Draco was blushing harder as Severus looked at him inquiringly.

"A... significant gift." For a young man to give clothing... especially something pretty, rather than a lumpy hand knitted jumper or the like... to a young woman was essentially an indication of romantic interest among pure-bloods. To give a gift that flattered the appearance of the recipient was a subtle-but-obvious way of indicating that said appearance was found pleasing.

"She won't know about that," Draco muttered, occupying himself with the tea. "I just thought... well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"I'm sure it did." Narcissa would have hysterics if she ever found out. Her darling boy courting a Mudblood... and no great beauty at that. Narcissa wouldn't be happy about a tall, willowy, golden-haired Muggle-born with a musical voice, lambent blue eyes and flawless creamy skin, but she'd be more easily reconciled to that than a petite, rather shrill Muggle-born with brown eyes, common pinkish skin, and a mane of untidy, wiry brown hair. Although if Severus pointed out Hermione's intellectual brilliance and magical power... Cissy wasn't completely unreasonable, she'd accept 'gifted' as a substitute for 'well-bred' or 'exquisitely beautiful', just as long as her daughter-in-law brought something to the family. Of course, he was rather putting the cart before the horse there... "Draco... I know you like the girl, but how seriously have you thought about this?"

"What do you mean?" Draco sounded a little defensive.

"How serious are you?" Severus asked, watching the boy closely. "The Blacks usually marry young, if they marry at all. Your mother and both your aunts did. Are you planning to follow in the family footsteps?"

Draco made a rather lengthy production of putting biscuits on a plate and pouring the tea. Severus maintained an interrogative silence, knowing that Draco couldn't stay quiet for long. He lasted until Severus had been handed a cup of tea and Draco had sat down in the other chair, then he cracked. "I don't know. Maybe. I always sort of assumed Pansy and I would... well. That didn't really work out, obviously."

"Indeed." Draco had never chosen to share the precise contents of the note in which Pansy had terminated their relationship, but he'd seemed more embarrassed than really upset. "And you consider Miss Granger an acceptable substitute?"

"No, and stop trying to make me angry so I'll let things slip." Draco gave him a lopsided grin. "Hermione Granger is intelligent, loyal, sweet-natured and very attractive even now. I fancy her quite a lot. If we did ever get involved, then I'd be fairly serious about it. But don't start picking out wedding invitations... I haven't asked her out yet."

Severus nodded. "And the child? Your father would have been utterly appalled at the idea of raising the child of another man."

"I'm not my father," Draco said quietly, looking into the fire. "I've always wanted children, you know that. If things did... work out, I don't think I'd have any trouble with it." He smiled sadly. "It'd probably be for the best, really... everyone in my family is insane. It's probably hereditary. At least this way I'd have a shot at having one that's reasonably stable."

Severus nodded slowly. "She will, I think, be a good mother," he said, sipping his tea and staring into the fire. "A little fussy and strict, perhaps."

"I think so, too." Draco smiled again, as if this were a pleasant thought. "You don't disapprove, then?"

"No. No, I don't disapprove." Now here was a nice, tidy potential solution. Draco was very like his mother, and Cissy had indulged and adored her spouse and child beyond all reason. Draco would be good to both Hermione and her child, and she was sensible enough not to let him spoil the child too badly. Severus would even be able to keep an eye on it himself, since he was practically family. Yes, that would work very nicely. He gave his godson an approving look. "I would not advise that you rush into any declarations, but if you continue trying to win her over slowly..."

"I intend to." Draco nodded, looking a little relieved. Apparently Severus's approval was more important than he'd realised. "Slowly and carefully. She's not the sort to be won over by expensive gifts and flattery... I'll have to impress her with my intellect, I think. Good thing I've got one."

Professor McGonagall handed Hermione a teacup and indicated the open biscuit tin with a characteristically abrupt gesture. "Ginger Newt?"

"No, thank you." Hermione sipped her tea, mostly to be polite, and set it down on the table beside her. "Thank you for talking to me, Professor. I know that Professor Sinistra is my Head of House now, but... we don't really know each other well, and she doesn't know much about this." She touched her stomach lightly. "You're really the only person I've told, aside from the baby's father. And he's... uhm... I can't really talk to him about it again, if you see what I mean."

"Quite." Professor McGonagall made a wry face. "I've never been in your situation myself, but I've seen it often enough, in students and otherwise. Of course, in my day, it would have been a wandpoint-wedding - or whatever Muggle fathers use to threaten young men who meddle with their daughters - and never mind whether or not you wanted the young man involved."

"Only if I could be bullied into naming him, which I wouldn't." Hermione smiled ruefully. "I'd probably have wound up married to Ron, and we'd both have been miserable."

"I should imagine so." Professor McGonagall shook her head at the thought. "Mr Weasley is a brave fighter and a fine young man, but he most certainly is not mature enough for marriage. Arthur Weasley was so quiet and steady at that age. Only Charlie and Percy really take after him, from what I've been able to see... the others are all very much like their mother."

"Really?" Hermione considered that, looking down at her bulge. "I wonder if he or she'll be like me. If you find a perpetually raised hand and a series of eight-foot essays scampering around the castle in eleven years, let me know."

Professor McGonagall chuckled. "I will look forward to it. It's rare to find a student so enthusiastic about learning."

Hermione tried to hide her wince as she remembered Professor Snape's rather less flattering appraisal of her learning ability. "It wasn't just the learning. It was... I wanted to prove that I belonged here. That I was good enough. And..." She made a rueful face. "I can't bear the idea of looking stupid."

"I quite understand," Professor McGonagall said, smiling at her. "I was much the same way as a student myself."

Hermione nodded. "It's... not just my studies, either," she said quietly. "I just... I hate knowing I've done something stupid. And I did, with this." She touched her bulge gently. "It upsets me just as much as knowing I hurt his father... Which makes me feel like such a horrible person, because how can feeling stupid possibly be as bad as hurting someone?"

"I see." Professor McGonagall sipped her tea again, giving her a thoughtful look. "I confess, Miss Granger, that in thirty-five years of teaching and twenty as a Head of House, I have never encountered anything like this particular situation. However, I will do my best to help, if I can... and anything you tell me I will hold in the strictest of confidence."

"Thank you." Hermione picked her teacup back up, fiddling with the handle aimlessly. "I don't know why I want to talk about it, really."

"The urge to confess is a strong one." Professor McGonagall took a biscuit, setting it neatly on the side of her saucer. "Better out than in, as they say... getting it off your chest will make you feel better."

"Maybe. It might also convince you that I'm an idiot, and I don't really want that," Hermione said, looking down into her tea.

"Miss Granger, I assure you that whatever it is you've done, I have heard something stupider. I have been a Head of House for twenty years, and Gryffindor is not generally populated by intellectuals and forward thinkers, as much as it pains me to say so."

Hermione couldn't help giggling a little at that. "I had noticed that, yes. But I know better."

"So do I, Miss Granger, but that didn't stop me from pushing Augustus Nott down a flight of stairs when I was seventeen and nearly killing him." Professor McGonagall made a wry face. "In my defence, he'd tried to stick his hand down the front of my robes, but it was still a stupid and dangerous thing to do which I greatly regret."

Hermione nodded. "That was an... an angry-stupid thing, though," she said quietly. "Mine wasn't."

"What was yours, precisely?" Professor McGonagall gave her a direct look over her glasses. "If you're ready to tell me."

"I... wasn't entirely honest with you, the first time I told you about it," Hermione said in a small voice. "What I told you was true. I... er... was with someone who was seriously inebriated. I knew he wouldn't normally have... well..."

"You shagged someone who was utterly pissed and didn't remember a thing the next day, despite knowing at the time that he was far too drunk to give informed consent." Hermione stared, her jaw dropping slightly, and the Headmistress actually snickered. "My dear girl, I'm not only familiar with the terms, but I imagine I have far greater experience of both than you do. I was young once, you know, a long time ago."

Hermione blushed furiously. "Er... yes, Professor." Minerva McGonagall was a handsome woman even now... she must have been quite attractive when she was young. Certainly more so than Hermione... taller, not as scrawny, hair that behaved... "Anyway. Uhm. It wasn't just that... well, that I felt like it, and he was there. That's what he thinks, but that wasn't it."

"You said that you were already attracted to him, the first time we spoke," Professor McGonagall said, watching Hermione thoughtfully.

"It was a bit more than that." Hermione stared into her teacup. "I had... have... a crush on him. It's still there, even after all this. I know I don't know him well enough, that it's just... just me imagining that I understand him. I know it's just a crush, and that I can't use it as any sort of excuse for what I did, because I knew that was wrong. I just..." Her lip quivered. "I've never felt like this before," she whispered. "Not even about Ron."

"Oh. Oh, I do see..." Professor McGonagall's voice was quiet and oddly gentle.

"And I... oh, God, I feel so stupid." She covered her face with one hand as she took a deep breath in an attempt to make her voice steadier. "Even Lavender's not as stupid as this. I mean, she's an empty-headed, catty little cow without the sense of a Pygmy Puff, but even she's not idiotic enough to s-sleep with someone in some sort of pathetic attempt to get his attention!"

Her teacup was removed from her hand, and she heard the clink as it was set down somewhere. "Your unflattering description of your house-mate aside, Hermione, I do understand."

"I just... I know better! I do!" Hermione hid her face in both hands now, letting her hair fall forward to shield her further from the surely disappointed look in Professor McGonagall's eyes. "I just... I wanted him to realise I was a girl, at least, and I'd been drinking myself and... and now he'll never, ever forgive me, and I've ruined everything because I was stupid..."

She heard movement, and a thin arm went gently around her shoulders. Professor McGonagall must be sitting on the small, sturdy table beside her chair. "Hermione, if this is the only time you do something ungodly stupid in the pursuit of a young man, then you will have gotten off more lightly than many," she said, all the usual sharpness gone from her voice. "You are a gifted young witch, a good friend and a loyal ally. But you were still only seventeen when it happened, and there is, I assure you, no stupider period in one's entire life than the late teens and early twenties, especially when it comes to romance."

Hermione leaned into the half hug, tears overflowing at the unanticipated understanding. "That's part of why I c-couldn't take those potions everyone was telling me I could have if I wanted," she said, her voice cracking. "I knew I'd n-never have a chance with him, not after that, but I still cared, and when I found out..."

"It wasn't that you couldn't give up your child, but that you couldn't give up his." Professor McGonagall gave her shoulder a little squeeze. "That, my dear, I do understand. I can't say I've ever wanted any man's child myself, but I do understand why you couldn't let go."

"And he h-hates me for that, too, I'm sure he does." Hermione wiped her eyes and hid her face against Professor McGonagall's bony shoulder. "But I want this baby... and I'll be a good m-mother, I will. I'll take the best c-care of him..."

"I'm sure you will." Professor McGonagall patted her hair gently. "And I don't think you need worry that you're a horrible person for being ashamed of your foolishness, either. We all do stupid things when we're in love - and sometimes they hurt people, and then we're rightfully ashamed of them."

In love. She'd been carefully avoiding those words. It was just a crush. Crushes could be outgrown, worn down, shaken off. Even so, the words were comforting. "I d-didn't mean to hurt him, I truly didn't..."

"There, now, I know." A clean white hanky with a thistle embroidered on one corner entered her field of vision. "Blow your nose."

Hermione straightened up and blew, feeling oddly comforted by suddenly being treated like a first-year again. (A Ginger Newt and a bethistled hanky had been the offered comfort for a terrible bout of homesickness then, along with the loan of a book. They'd worked surprisingly well, especially the book) "Thank you, Professor."

"Tch." To Hermione's surprise, Professor McGonagall shook her head. "At least while we're in private, you might as well call me Minerva."

Hermione's jaw dropped again. "Oh, Professor McGonagall, I couldn't..."

"It's certainly not a liberty I would usually encourage even in a former student, let alone a current one. Professor Lupin still has trouble with it, as a matter of fact." Professor McGonagall chuckled, seeming quite amused by that. "He wasn't a particularly good student, when it came to Transfiguration, and I admit I was rather hard on him. You, however, are something of a special case, Hermione. You and I have fought side by side in battle, and since you were a child, you have been taking on responsibilities that would unnerve even me... motherhood being only one." She smiled a little. "I've never been a mother, myself, or ever wished to be. I like children well enough, I suppose, but babies have always made me terribly nervous."

"Really?" Hermione had never imagined that stern, bossy, brilliant Professor McGonagall could be made nervous by anything less than a rampaging Acromantula at the very least. "Babies?"

"Oh, yes. They're fragile, noisy and prone to leaking all sorts of unpleasant substances without warning." Professor McGonagall shook her head. "The point I am trying to make, Hermione, is that you have earned the right to be treated as an adult, even if you are still a student. That includes the use of adult modes of address, including the use of first names when they are offered."

"I... thank you," Hermione sniffed and wiped her eyes with the hanky. "It does mean a lot to hear you say that, even if I'm not quite sure I can actually do it."

"Just do your best - that's all anyone can expect." Professor McGonagall nodded briskly. "And it's about time we moved your quarters. All the stairs in Gryffindor Tower must be very difficult for you, and I hear there have been complaints about your monopolizing the bathtubs."

Hermione blushed. "My back gets sore."

"Well, under the circumstances, I think a nice suite of rooms on the third floor would be much easier on you. Most of your classes will be more readily accessible from there, and you'll have a bathtub all to yourself." Professor McGonagall smiled encouragingly. "You'll also get a house-elf assigned to you. I know you don't approve of the enslavement of house-elves but I assure you that despite your hat-dropping proclivities, they have all volunteered for this particular task. House-elves are particularly devoted to the children of their families, and one of the reasons we have so many here at Hogwarts is their pleasure in tending children who are away from their homes. They are deprived, however, of babies. I imagine you will have every house-elf at Hogwarts in and out of your quarters once the child is born, although you probably won't see them. Dilly will be assigned to you - she is one of the more senior elves, but has lived all her life at Hogwarts and has never had the opportunity to tend an expectant mother. She is extremely excited by the opportunity."

"Oh." Refusing would seem positively childish, if Dilly was really that excited about the baby. And it would be nice to have her own room and not to have to try to bend over if she dropped something on the floor, which was getting really difficult. "Well... all right, then. Thank you, Prof- Minerva." She blushed, but she got the word out.

"Just don't expect me to hold the baby when it does arrive," Minerva said with a sudden grin. "As endearing as I'm sure it will be, I'd be terrified of dropping it. I will admire from a dignified distance."

Hermione waddled into her dormitory with a sigh of relief. Tomorrow, her things would be moved into another room. She wouldn't have to listen to Lavender's and Parvati's catty comments anymore. She wouldn't have to get out of the bath when she didn't want to anymore. She wouldn't have to pick glitter off her things anymore.

And she wouldn't have to face those bloody stairs ever again!

"What are you doing?" Parvati asked as Hermione started gathering things up and dropping them into her trunk.

"First thing tomorrow I'm moving out." She really shouldn't snap at Parvati. She couldn't help being what she was. "Professor McGonagall thinks the stairs up to Gryffindor Tower are getting to be too much for me. And she's right, to be honest... I can hardly get up here without stopping to rest, these days. She's moving me into one of the guest rooms on the third floor."

"You're getting your own room?" Lavender glared at her. "That's not fair!"

"Neither is the two of you losing sleep when I start having to get up to pee three times a night," Hermione said tartly. "Not to mention after the baby's born - did you want to hear him or her crying every two hours night and day?"

"Definitely not," Parvati said, before Lavender could respond. "And you are getting slower and slower on the stairs, I've noticed that."

"And I'll have my own bath, so I won't be putting anyone else out." Lavender frowned at that, and Hermione suspected she knew where the complaints Professor McGonagall mentioned had come from. "Anyway, you two will like having a room to yourselves, I'm sure."

Parvati brightened. "We will! And there'll be more room with only two beds in here, maybe we could get a couch or something."

"See? That'll be fun. And I'll have my own room to leave my books all over, so they won't be in your way." Hermione dropped a stack of books into the trunk and winced, rubbing her back. "Ngh. No matter what anyone tells you about miracles, pregnancy is the single most uncomfortable thing I've ever experienced. At least being hexed is over quicker."

Lavender frowned again. "Well, of course it's uncomfortable if you're running all over a school while you're doing it," she said rather haughtily. "If you were taking proper care of yourself..."

"Lavender, I'm six months pregnant. I'd be uncomfortable even if I was living in a luxurious mansion with no stairs at all and no homework to do. I'm getting heartburn that I have to take potions for every day, I'm getting woken up at three in the morning by someone kicking me in the lungs, I'm getting shooting pains in my legs and hips and the only thing preventing some truly agonizing haemorrhoids is the daily application of a salve that I would personally sell one of your limbs to get more of if I ran out." Hermione dropped another pile of books into her trunk with an emphatic thump. "And this is all going to get worse and worse until I finally have to spend hours forcing a full-sized newborn out of an opening the size of a lime. Pregnancy is frequently disgusting, always uncomfortable and no bloody miracle, believe me!"

Parvati wrinkled her nose. "They never describe it like that in books," she said a bit doubtfully.

"The books lie." Hermione dug out her nightgown...a new one, the sort with a drawstring neck and yards and yards and yards of white cotton that would be loose right through her pregnancy. "They tell filthy, horrible romantic lies." She paused. "I'm still quite enjoying it, mind you. I do love my baby, and creating a new life is marvellous in its way. It's just that it's uncomfortable."