3. Home

'Filled with baby things' was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by too much. There were cards on the mantle from well wishers, many of whom neither Snape nor Hermione had ever met, but three weeks ago when the Daily Prophet went live with the news they started getting cards and small gifts.

On the coffee table in front of the sofa was a small collection of books on different birth techniques. Just because she'd likely have a magical birth didn't mean Hermione didn't want to know about Lamaze, Bradley, and water births.

Snape just stared at the collected objects in his living room, knowing that there was more in the nursery they had just started to decorate. He reached for a card, and then stopped, his hand inches from it.

"We shouldn't touch anything. I don't know how this curse is spread." He paused staring at the cards on the mantle. Arthur conjured a box to put the cards in, and began to nudge them into the box with the tip of his wand.

Severus blinked slowly, and then began a very long, very loud, and very profane tirade. Having spent most of his adult life with Molly, Arthur was familiar with what happened when people with a hot temper explode, but he had never seen anything like this. It was terrifying the way blackness and rage seemed to coalesce around Severus. Arthur wanted to stop him, but didn't know how. Without warning Snape whipped around and punched his hand through the wall. The sound of plaster and lathe and likely fingers breaking brought Snape out of his rage. He stormed out of the room, and returned a moment later holding a vial in the hand he hadn't used. The hand he had used hung at an odd angle and was rapidly swelling and turning black.

"Can you open this for me?" His voice was calm, though he spoke through gritted teeth, and his color was paler than normal.

Arthur took the vial and began to open it. He couldn't hide the alarmed look on his face.

Severus caught the look. "It's Skelegrow. I'm fairly sure that at least two fingers and a metacarpal are broken.

Arthur handed Snape the potion, and Severus gulped it down. He winced slightly, and tried to move his fingers. Only the thumb and pinky flexed. He stood in the middle of his living room looking at the box filled with cards. "I've been too comfortable for too long. It never occurred to me to take a dark detector to the lot of this stuff. Nothing should have entered this house without being scanned first."

Arthur thought fast for a way to respond to that. The last thing he wanted was for Snape to start blaming himself. "None of us are still living on a war footing anymore. Besides you don't know what did this. It could be a side effect of one of the curses Hermione got hit with during the war. Bellatrix had her alone for how many hours? She got hit with at least a few others we never identified during the battle of Hogwarts and at the Ministry of Magic."

For a second the rage sparked, and was quickly replaced with a defeated tone. "Stop being condescending. You don't think this is an old curse anymore than I do. I should have protected her. I should have kept watch on our home." Severus kicked the box, and then sat down on the couch.

Arthur slid the box out of foot range and sat next to Severus. "If you were still the man who spent all of his time looking over his shoulder she wouldn't have married you." Severus thought about that for a minute.

"She'd have been better off without me." Severus squeezed his broken hand. Arthur realized he needed to get Severus out of this mood quickly. Grief was normal and good, but blaming himself wasn't solving any problems and was creating more. He straightened his shoulders and hardened his voice.

"Bullshit! She'd be in America or Australia pining away for Ron with her life on hold if it hadn't been for you. That is in no way better off. Now you stop this. It happened. You didn't stop it. And if what we've heard about this curse is accurate there was no way you could have stopped it. And I see you hurting your hand all over again. She won't like that at all. You don't want her to wake up and find out that you've only got seven working fingers. Now where do you keep your pain killer?"

"I don't need one." Severus sounded petulant.

"You're white as a sheet and using the pain in your hand to punish yourself. That stops now. Where's the pain killer? I know you brew an excellent one because we've got some of it at home. And you do not want me popping back to my house and telling Molly what I need and why I need it."

Severus sighed. Arthur had the perfect trump card. The last thing he wanted was Molly Weasley in his home right now. "The bathroom off of our bedroom. In the medicine cabinet."

"Good. I'll get it. You read through this and start thinking about who we need to investigate." He handed Severus the parchment.

Arthur sighed deeply from frustration when he got out of Severus' hearing. This had not gone even close to how he had wanted it to. Instead of getting Snape off the warpath, he had just put him on it. But enraged Snape was something he thought he could handle, self pitying Snape scared him. He entered the bathroom, and found the potion he was looking for. As he exited the room he noticed something he missed when he walked into their bedroom. On what he assumed was Hermione's side of the bed was a book of baby names, and a small basket filled with yarn.

He picked up the basket, and saw the beginning of a baby blanket. Small knit squares of blues, greens, yellows, and pinks were waiting to be attached to each other. He sighed again, sadly this time, and put the book in the basket, and took both of them to the nursery. He stopped at the door of the nursery. "Accio Box." A few seconds later the box of cards and books from downstairs joined him. He opened the door and slid the box and the basket into the room. He didn't want to enter it and see more proof of a dream shattered.

When he returned to the living room Severus barely looked up. He had a pen in his off hand and was awkwardly crossing out names from the list in front of him.

"Most of these people are dead."

"You know that for sure? I had Smith make me a list of everyone we never found a body for." He handed Severus the pain killer. Severus shot it back quickly, his eyes hardly leaving the page in front of him.

"I was there when these two were killed."

"That's good enough for me."

Severus continued to read, occasionally placing a note next to a name or crossing a name out.

When he got to the bottom of the list he added three names. Of the original fifty-six names there were now twenty.

"I should go to bed." Arthur was not an accomplished Legilimens. In fact he was not even close to being a competent Legilimens. But even he could see that Severus had absolutely no intention of going to bed.

"Wait a minute first. There are two things I want to talk to you about."

"I'm rather tired."

"It won't take long. Then I'll put you to bed, feed you some Dreamless Sleep, and come and wake you in time to get to St. Mungo's before Hermione's awake."

"I'm not a child. I don't need help going to bed."

"I don't think you need help going to bed. I think you need help not racing out of here the second I leave and unleashing your considerable skills at interrogation and the production of Veritaserum on everyone on that list. You aren't an Auror, Severus. And the last thing we want is for you to end up in jail in the cell next to the guy who did this." Severus blinked. Arthur took that for assent, and continued on with what he had really wanted to say to Severus.

"Right now you're focused on Hermione." Right now you're focused on revenge, Arthur thought, but he continued on with what he wanted to say to Snape originally. "And you should be. But you have to keep something in mind, she won't think of this as something that happened to her. She'll think of it as something that happened to her child."

Severus started to speak, but stopped when Arthur gestured that he wasn't finished. "I saw the way you looked when the Healer said Hermione was fine. For you the loss of the child is an afterthought. And it should be. Babies aren't real to us the way they are to our wives, not until they're on the outside at least.

"Tomorrow, when you see her, keep this in mind. She lost a child. You lost the possibility of a child. It's not the same thing. It's not even close. For you the most important part is that she wasn't hurt. For her the most important part is the loss of a baby. And you can't tell her any of this. She won't appreciate hearing that you're young and you can have more kids, although that's true. She won't want to hear how happy you are that she's alright, although that's true too. Tomorrow she'll need a partner to grieve with, not some revenge obsessed maniac who's breaking fingers because the physical pain is easier to deal with than the mental pain.

"Severus, we love you, and we will find who did this. But let us do it. You need to be there for her."

Like many of the people who knew him, Severus had a tendency to forget how deep Arthur went. It was easy to just see the mild mannered Ministry official and family man who was overshadowed by his much louder and brighter family.

Severus spoke quietly, "I don't know if I can bear her sorrow." Ah, there's the root of this, Arthur thought.

"You can and you will. And in time it will fade. Come on, let's get you into bed." Arthur stood up and offered Severus his hand. Severus took it and stood. When he did Arthur hugged him, and for the first time in his adult life Severus was being embraced like a son. Snape stiffened for a moment, and then relaxed. Arthur felt Severus start to shake, and loud, uninhibited sobs filled the room.

"You will make it through this, both of you," Arthur said, patting Severus on the back; soothing Severus like he had countless times before with his boys. After a few moments Severus regained control of himself. Arthur led him to his room, gave him the Dreamless Sleep potion, and left.