Vignette 3: Baby Shower

Nearly a year had elapsed by the time of Hermione's first pregnancy. And Snape was the first one to suspect it. He told her to get a test, and it proved his assumption. Hermione teasingly pressed him how he'd known, even before she had. He said it was a secret of his profession. In truth, he was in no way sure himself. He had just…known. New life. After so much death. Of course he would sense that…

Harry had nearly had a meltdown, a mix of panic and glee, and Snape chewed him out for being an incorrigible pansy, and that he'd best make something of himself lest the child turned out to be…well, just like his father. Then he went on to lecture Hermione on everything she should and should not eat in her condition. He'd been terribly strict about it, in a very stern teacher-like tone, and suddenly it was as if he were back at his class, setting down the law with an iron fist. But this time, Hermione smiled.

"Why in blazes are you smiling, you strange girl?" he demanded in mid lecture.

"Because," she said, "you care."

He shifted awkwardly, and mumbled, "Getting back to where I was…"

The next week came the get together with Ron and Ginny Weasley to announce the big news. They'd come over fairly regularly, but Snape always remained away from the action, down in his basement doing his chemistry gigs to avoid all the clamor. But this time, Hermione was determined that he should be a part of the get-together.

"Why don't you come up and say hello?" she coaxed him.

"They don't want to see me and you know it," he huffed, continuing his chemistry equation writing.

She raised her eyebrow suspiciously. "Or is that you don't want to see them?"

"A happy mutuality, no doubt."

"Oh, come on, won't you come up for me?"

"For you?"

She nodded. "This is my first time for this sort of thing. I want you to be a part of it."

He paused for a brief second, then kept writing. "You don't need me there, and you damn well know it. I would just…spoil everything."

She looked downcast. "Well, I won't force you. But…feel free to come up if you change your mind."

A half hour passed by. Scratch, scratch, scratch went his pen in the quiet, writing out his formulas. He heard the muffled sound of laughter on the floor above him. He swallowed, wondering if somewhere within himself, the safety of his orderly equations was becoming stagnant, suffocating. He tried to stifle back the thought, to keep working, but found something pulling him away. He had never felt that for years upon years. He had long ago decided he hated social gatherings. And social gatherings hated him. But right now, he felt a strange need, to be part of some silly flow he could not altogether understand…

And when he wheeled himself up the ramp, onto the first floor, and into the room where they were all lounging, they heard the sound of the chair, and their eyes locked on him. Seeing the look of shocked examination on Ron and Ginny's faces, he instinctively drained whiter than a sheet. It was the great secret of Severus Snape: he was a shy man, and one who dreaded the reaction of others when trying, roughly, to make gestures he was unaccustomed to. Yes, he was shy, deeply, profoundly, painfully, and the years of using his many mental walls of command, of contempt, or cunning had only made it keener when he tried, brick by brick, to tear them down.

But sometimes, they might still serve him well.

"Well…I see you've all still got jaws that fall open to catch flies. An elegant spectacle as ever. Should be made into a portrait."

And after a moment this dead-pan observation, Ginny chuckled softly, awkwardly, and the others joined in.

"Nice to see that you've…uh…y'know, you're managing…in your…"

"Ron," Hermione hissed.

"My…throne?" He tilted his head tellingly.

"He acts like it, believe me," Harry tossed in. "He hasn't lost any of his tyrannical streak, let me tell you what."

"Why thank you, Mr. Potter, your confidence in me is touching," he remarked crisply.

For several hours, Snape put up a brave front, and Hermione thought that, in spite of himself, he might just be finding the whole thing slightly enjoyable. He was snarking left and right, but not in a terribly bitter way. He kept a straight face, a flat tone, but she had learned the language of his eyes well, and knew that somewhere inside, he was part of a dance. The company seemed to be enjoying it, yes, enjoying his presence among them, like some stabilizing force, or vestige of normality. He certainly made their game of scrabble more interesting.

Sooner or later, they started to reminisce, tongue-in-cheek, about the old days, before the war. They called him the terror, but in good fun. They remembered him chasing him down for breaking curfews, for the test-tube cleaning detention sessions, for the times he had them miss out on Quidditch because of his lengthy homework assignments. He said it prevented them from being menaces to society. They ribbed him over how he had avoided social functions like the plague. He concurred, except he still believed the plague was a more merciful alternative to mixing all those obnoxious school chatter-boxes and high-and-mighty staff members.

The young loungers decided to start a movie marathon, something Snape thought was abysmally dumb, and the boys and girls had totally different ideas of what they wanted to watch. In the end they settled upon a space opera involving a galaxy far, far away, a lot of laser beam fighting, which Snape grumbled were poor excuses for wands. But the girls prevailed halfway through and wanted to switch to some musical set in revolutionary France which, Snape noted, made the characters demise a pleasant thing since the actors were incapable of holding a tune. He also made a point of yelling at Hermione for eating too much pizza and drinking too much butter beer in her condition.

At the end of the night, when Harry and Hermione started drifting towards the door with Ron, Ginny turned back to him, and all his old awkwardness returned like a shadow falling over his countenance. Perhaps now was the time she would tell him just how she really felt, tell him how much his own mistakes had caused everyone, how he could have done more during his brief, dark term as headmaster to prevent the carnage. He swallowed, and tapped with his fingers on the arm of his chair automatically, a deference of nerves.

Yes, yes, he had been acquitted, yes, he had only been part of a larger game, and he had tried, with all his cunning he had tried to keep as many of the students from harm as he could. As God was his witness he had. But he knew it had not been enough, and the act he had been forced to play lingered in the minds of others more keenly than the tortured reality. And he had been long-suspected and ill-loved ages before the school's occupation. He could imagine what she would say, and found himself wishing himself far away. His protective shell had become progressively weak over the past year, and he dreaded it being penetrated.

"This is teacher appreciation week," Ginny said quietly.

Snape snorted, believing her to be taking a jab. "Twist of irony, yes?"

But when he finally dared to meet her eyes, he saw she regarded him softly.

He blinked uncomfortably. "I am well aware…there is little to appreciate here."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because…it is true." He exhaled. "Believe me when I say…I would not have burdened anyone with my life. I would have been glad to give it…in exchange for some other life lost in the wars…some younger life, of more worth…"

He saw Ginny's lower lip tremble, knowing she was thinking of her brother Fred. Then, out of nowhere, she had bent over and embraced him. Snape froze. No one had done that other than Hermione, and it was totally unexpected given the circumstances. But it said everything that words failed to convey. And then she murmured, "Glad…glad you're here. He would be too."

"I…rather doubt that…" He inhaled. "He died thinking me…a monster."

"But he knows now. We all do."

She let him go and took a step back, but she graced him with a gentle smile that spoke of forgiveness for days gone by.

And he figured he was rather glad he came upstairs after all.