AN: As Always, thank you to everyone who reviewed and what not – you've restored my confidence in the fic. I had a bit of a soap opera over dramatic moment with this chapter... don't say I didn't warn you...

WARNING: this chapter contains descriptions of domestic abuse; please feel free to skip it. Oh, and please respect the rating system.

AN2: My apologies – I honestly thought I'd posted this weeks ago... don't quite know what happened there maybe I just need to reboot my brain...

Disclaimer: Much as I would love to be able to honestly say that all these characters are my own invention, I can't, in fact, it's not just the characters, there's all sorts of things that I've borrowed in the name of the alleviation of boredom – so, if you recognise it, it isn't mine!

Chapter Ten

Hermione sat pushing soggy cornflakes round and round the bowl at the kitchen table. She had to admit she was a little concerned. Things had been going well over the last six weeks. they had started to move past Severus' aversion to answering questions. They had even had one conversation where they came close to discussing his time at school. It was just the last few days that he seemed to have started to slip away again. He was spending increasing amounts of time down in his lab and when he did appear he would often only grab a book, flick through to check some fact or other, and then disappear again, sometimes back down to the lab and sometimes out of the house to Merlin only knew where. So now, as Hermione sat quite alone at the kitchen table, she was contemplating what could possibly have gone wrong to make him revert so much.

She had resolved to talk to him about it, and a few other things last night. He did after all, always come to bed, and usually not too late. The problem was that last night, he hadn't. She had waited and waited for him to appear until finally she could keep her eyes open no longer and ended up falling asleep with the book still open in her lap, leaning against the head board. He still hadn't been there this morning. And he definitely wasn't here now. She counted back; he hadn't had dinner last night. He hadn't had lunch either. The last time she had seen him was breakfast yesterday when he had appeared for the amount of time it took him to down a glass of orange juice and eat half a slice of toast. He hadn't said a word to her. Maybe he wasn't avoiding her; maybe he was just really busy. Hermione got up slowly and pressed her ear to the door of his lab. Silence. She couldn't even be sure he was down there. What if there was another way out of the house down there? What if he was sneaking off to see some other woman? What if he had already been with the other woman and quite happy before she even came along? What if at this moment in time he hated her for standing in the way of his happy life with the other woman? Hermione gave herself a mental slap round the face as tears started to leak from her eyes. There was no other woman. Of course he was down there. There was no need to get emotional about this.

-#X#-

By the time lunch rolled around, Hermione had managed to distract herself with the book collection that she almost missed it herself, and in doing almost missed the fact that Severus still hadn't reappeared. Almost. She forced herself to return to her books. He would emerge when he was ready, and when he did, they would talk. It would be fine.

-#X#-

Dinner time the following day found Hermione pacing around the kitchen arguing with herself. She was forbidden from going in his Lab. She wasn't allowed to so much as touch the door handle, especially if he wasn't there. The trouble was, the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that something bad had happened. Logic said that there was a silencing charm on the door, otherwise she surely would have, at some point of another, heard the clinking of vials, or the clunking of a cauldron being moved, maybe even Severus swearing – it hadn't been unknown during their brief spell as working partners at Hogwarts. The trouble was, if there was a silencing spell on the door, what happened if there was an accident? What happened if something had exploded and Severus was unable to get upstairs to the door? She couldn't imagine that he could spend this whole time working quietly away, with no food and perhaps no sleep either, it was just impossible, he needed rest and food to keep his mind on top form. The argument was whether she should wait another night to see if he would come up on his own, or to go down and check.

Finally the niggling curiosity to see what his lab was like added itself into her concern for his safety, and she put her hand on the door handle. She paused to listen one final time before she opened the door but the silence was complete. The handle turned easily.

The second the door had opened she was hit with the reason for the silencing charm. The music blaring up the stairs was so loud it almost formed a solid wall. She struggled to make out any undercurrent of the kind of sounds one would expect to hear in a potions lab. It was impossible. She ventured down a couple of steps, still trying to hear anything other than the deafening noise. It was impossible. How could he even bear it? Hermione moved a few steps nearer, now trying to peer around the corner. She just wanted to check he was okay. It was natural concern for a fellow human being –and a fair bit of curiosity about the lab. She would just stick her head in to ask if he needed anything, like food.

Finally standing on the last step, Hermione felt her jaw drop slightly. The centre of the room was almost completely taken up by three cauldrons. The most interesting one seemed to be made of glass, though Hermione suspected that it had actually just been hit with a spell to make it clear. It was gently swirling it's own contents (a bright orange liquid) as a wine connoisseur might swirl wine round a glass while hovering in mid air at about head height. Severus stood between the other two cauldrons. He was stirring one with his left hand, while adding a shimmering silver powder to the other with his right hand, sprinkling it across the surface. She watched for a moment as his left wrist flicked through the potion, catching onto his pattern, quick, quick, slow, quick, slow, change direction and repeat. It was mesmerising. Especially as a purple mist began to rise from the surface, lending an almost dream like look to the whole scenario.

Hermione shook herself to clear her mind. She figured that she needed to attract his attention and wondered if she could shout over the music. "Severus?" she hardly heard her own voice. Severus stopped stirring and put out the flames beneath the left cauldron, but continued to sprinkle the powder. "SEVERUS!" still nothing. Now he was stirring the right potion, and apparently measuring out more powder, she noted the slight frown of concentration that passed over his face, his lips moving to silently count the turns of the stirring rod.

"SEVERUS!" she tried again, this time waving her arms as he turned half towards her. He nodded his head once as she stopped waving. That meant he was acknowledging her presence, right? She might have been pushing the limits when she also took it to mean she could come closer to see what he was doing, but then, when else was she going to get an opportunity like this? Hermione moved quietly across the room, not wishing to disturb his counting. She spied the CD player in the corner, but left it alone, it was probably best not to touch anything, who knew what she could accidently interfere with?

He was sprinkling again, this time twirling the rod through the mixture, which she could now see was pearly white in colour and about the thickness of yoghurt. He had stopped counting, so she decided it was probably safe to speak. "I just wondered if you wanted me to bring you some dinner or a sandwich or something?" she raised her voice over the music even though she was standing just by his shoulder.

She realised that he clearly hadn't seen her after all when he jumped so badly he spilled the entire scoop of powder into the potion (which instantly turned a sludgy grey) and swore loudly. The music cut out instantly. "I'm sorry, I thought you'd seen me." Hermione squeaked.

"Sorry? You're sorry!" Severus turned to glare at her, the look on his face was enough to make her take a couple of steps back before she'd even thought it through. "Do you know what you've just ruined? Do you have the slightest comprehension of how long it's taken me to get that to that stage?"

"I thought you'd seen me." She stammered back, "you nodded at me." It sounded feeble and she knew it.

"Why the bloody hell would I have invited you in when I explicitly told you to stay out?" he was visibly shaking with rage, Hermione took a few more steps back, and found that he advanced with her. "As you can see, my decision was justified! More than 10 years of work and you've just buggered the lot of it in less than a minute! Most of the ingredients require more than six months prep, that's not even thinking about the ones that are now non-tradable items under the fucking new ministry, meaning I'll be lucky to even see them again, let alone be able to get hold of them!"

"surely they'd give you a special licence, I mean you're the most famous potions expert of your age in, anywhere, and you're a war-"

"Yes, the ministry regularly hands out special licences for restricted substances to ex-death eaters!"

Hermione was against the wall now. "But you've been found innocent." She protested.

"Actually, I've been pardoned, which, before you say it, is so far from the same thing they're not even relatable!" Over his shoulder, Hermione noticed that the clear cauldron was swirling faster and faster, it's contents beginning to slosh and beat against the sides.

"There must be some way –" CRASH! Hermione squealed as the cauldron suddenly dropped out of the air, apparently it was glass after all, as it smashed spectacularly against the stone floor, splattering the orange liquid over everything in sight. A faint fizzling sound came from a stack of papers neatly placed on a desk in the far corner as the potion spattered them.

"My notes!" that was too much for Severus who gave a harsh growl, his fist colliding with the wall over Hermione's shoulder, causing her to flinch and raise her hands defensively in front of her head, giving another squeal of fright. Fortunately the sight of her cowering seemed to flick a switch in Severus' brain. He immediately turned away from her. "And so it's true." He murmured, so low, Hermione almost didn't catch it, then, "No. I won't be him."

He turned back to her, she was surprised by the change in his eyes, and every trace of anger was gone, replaced by a strange mixture of trepidation and guilt. "You should go, just go to the ministry. Tell them I hit you, I won't deny the charges. They'll give you somewhere safe to live. They'll –"

To say Hermione was surprised was an understatement. "Severus I'm not going to tell them that you hit me when you didn't. You missed, though I admit the thought that you were aiming for me is a little alarming."

"I wasn't aiming for you, stupid girl! I just – I don't even know, look, just go to the ministry, they'll get you out of this, get you away from me."

"Severus, I'm not going."

"Please, just go, I don't want this to ever happen again, and clearly I can't be trusted to hold my temper. You can get out, you can go, they'll protect you."

"Yes, protect me by throwing you in prison! I'm not going to do that, not when you didn't do anything more than give me a bit of a fright in the face of a much more serious crime." He didn't actually seem to be hearing her words, instead he was pacing back and forth, clearly agitated, which said something about how bad he felt, given that he spent most of his time not even displaying the tiniest hint of his inner emotions.

"Look, it's for the best, just go to the ministry, tell them what you like, I won't deny the charges, there won't even be a trial." He was now trying to get her back up the stairs.

"Severus, stop it! I'm not going to the bloody ministry!" her own temper seemed to flair from no where as he picked her up and put her over his shoulder to carry her out of the lab.

"But you have to." He told her, "it's the only way, I'm not risking hurting you again."

"What do you mean again? I told you, you didn't get me, do you see a bruise? Put me down and look at me!" She found herself dumped into a kitchen chair.

"You don't understand, you have to go. You can get away, away from here, away from me –"

"Severus I'm not going!"

"Yes, you are, you have to."

"No, I'm not!"

"You'll be so much better off without me anyway! I mean, they'll give you a safe house and -"

"Severus, I absolutely refuse to do what you are telling me! I am not going to go to the ministry. I am not going to falsely accuse you of hitting me, once, twice or at all. I am not going to go and take up a house when there are many other women out there who actually do need them. No, I refuse to lie and I definitely refuse to make myself a single parent." She clamped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. She hadn't meant to tell him like that. She had been hoping to carefully bring up the issue over dinner one night; she had wanted to prepare him more.

"Don't be ridiculous, Hermione, to be a single parent you'd have to have kids, or at least be..." he trailed off. Hermione almost saw the cartoon light bulb click on above his head, and watched as every tiny molecule of colour drained out of his already pale face.

"Severus, I didn't mean to say that, I mean, I was going to tell you, obviously, just not like that." She started quickly, as he sank into a chair opposite her. "I was going to tell you at dinner the day before yesterday, but, well, you weren't there." She paused as he held up a hand to silence her.

The silence lasted for almost five excruciating minutes. It was ended by Severus standing up so sharply that his chair skittered back across the floor. He marched across the room and out of the kitchen into the lounge. Hermione heard him going up the stairs. She heard the bedroom door slam. She sniffed slightly as the first tears glided down her cheeks, mentally chastising herself for just blurting it out in her annoyance.

-#X#-

Ginny,

I've done something really, really stupid. Can you come round?

H.

The note that came through the floo was slightly charred, and bore the distinct splotching of tears. Knowing that it had to be something really bad for Hermione to have actually invited her to Spinner's End, Ginny was there within five minutes of receiving it. The door was no sooner opened than she had an arm full of sobbing Hermione.

Ginny waited until the worst of the tears had subsided over the mugs of steaming tea. "I admire your courage, you know," Ginny had long ago learnt that a bit of distracting humour usually helped, "there's not many people who'd risk inviting a Potter into Snape territory. Is he hiding in his lab again?" Unfortunately this didn't have the effect she had hoped for, as Hermione burst into renewed tears. "Hermione? What's going on? Where's Severus?"

"I – Don't – Know!" Hermione sobbed, "We- we –had a fight – and he – went out." She fought for control, "that was last week." She finished, blowing her nose on the tissue Ginny held out to her.

"Oh, 'Mione. What did you fight about?"

"It's my fault, I went in his lab, and there was a bit of an accident. The potion was ruined. He said he'd been working on it for 10 years!" she took a deep breath as tears threatened at the memory. "Long story short, he hit the wall with his fist, almost got me, not that he meant to, don't look at me like that." She added quickly, "He kept telling me I had to go the ministry and have him up on charges of domestic abuse. He just wouldn't listen to anything I said, he just kept on telling me to go to the ministry and then I got annoyed and I – I – I accidentally told him I'm pregnant." She said the last bit so quickly that Ginny almost missed it.

For a moment the red-head considered what to say. "And he left?" Hermione nodded, "and he hasn't been back?" Hermione shook her head, sniffing again. "Did he say anything? Anything at all before he left?"

"No. He just kind of froze up. He went really pale and quiet, and then he just got up, packed a bag and went out."

"Did he take all his things?"

"No, he left a couple of shirts, and a few other little things."

"Did he go back down in the lab?"

"No."

"In that case, I'd say he's coming back. You just have to give him time. It'll be okay, Hermione, he's not one to run from a challenge really, is he?" Happy that Hermione returned her encouraging smile, she decided she'd try the humour again, "now, more importantly, when were you planning to tell me you're pregnant?"

-#X#-

Severus felt like his mind had shut down. A handful of words reverberated round his head, blocking out any other thought. She's pregnant. She's going to have a baby. My baby. He had never, even in his most foolish fantasies thought that he would be a father, and yet it seemed that it was happening. The very thought terrified him more than anything else had ever done, not lying straight to the Dark Lords face, not even when that vile serpent had bitten him, had been this afraid.

He couldn't be a father. He knew nothing about any children under the age of eleven. He had always determinedly avoided them. He didn't know the first thing about babies for sure. He couldn't even draw on his own childhood, except perhaps as a reference for what not to do. He shuddered at the thought. What if his father's words came true? They already had in part.

"Stop it! You're hurting her!" At eight years old, Severus wasn't strong enough to pull his father off as he held his mother's hair tight in his fist.

"Don't interfere with things you don't understand boy!" the backhanded slap sent him sprawling across the floor. He didn't even know what this one was about. he had just come down stairs to get a glass of water. "One day, boy, you'll know, you'll learn that women need to be kept in their place. You'll learn that the best way to do that is the same way as you do with brats, dogs and all manner of other filthy creatures, a sharp dose of pain soon sorts them out. You'll do it too. You'll hit 'em just like I do. It's in your blood."

He'd sworn that day that he would never, ever, lay a single finger on any woman, child, or animal. So far he had broken the animal vow; he had come close to breaking the woman vow when he had lost his temper with Hermione. How did he know he wouldn't throw over his vow of never hurting children just as quickly? What if it really was in his blood? No, he couldn't let it happen. The only way he could ensure they were safe was to stay away.

They didn't need him anyway. Hermione, though he wouldn't have admitted it even under torture, was a bright, loving young woman. She would be a wonderful mother to this child. Maybe he could fake his own death? Then she'd be free to remarry. No, the ministry would probably choose a husband for her all over again, wasn't one of the reasons he married her in the first place to stop her from being tied to someone worse. It didn't seem possible at that moment that there could be anyone worse. Even Lucius had never beaten his wife, or Draco. No, there were definitely worse, he had seen first hand some of the men who now rotted in Azkaban laughing as they inflicted horrific wounds and torments on the most innocent victims they could find, age and gender were no boundaries to them.

Maybe he should go back. Maybe, just maybe, he could find some way to overcome his DNA. There had to be some sort of potion. Maybe something similar to Wolfsbane? Maybe it wasn't in his blood at all. Maybe his father had been wrong. But did he really want to take that risk?

He surprised himself to think that he actually wanted to be a part of this child's life. That was what finally made him go back. If he wanted so much to know this child, to help raise it, to care for it, then surely he wouldn't do anything to hurt it. His mind flashed back to Lily, he had wanted to care for her, and he had certainly hurt her, but then, he wasn't a teenager anymore, and he had fulfilled his promise to her. Maybe this was his chance at a fresh start.

-#X#-

Hermione looked up from the baby names book she was flicking through when she heard the front door click. The last two weeks had been a rollercoaster of doubt, determination, fear and excitement. With Ginny's help, she had finally decided that the best course of action was just to let Severus do what he needed to do. She owed him that for flinging the information at him in such a way, not to mention the damage to his potion and notes. She had forced herself to focus on the pregnancy and learning what she could from books instead of worrying about whether or not he was coming back.

He still looked pale as he stood in the door way, but he also looked determined. She didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say. He didn't say anything either. He just walked through into the kitchen. He was going into his lab. Hermione felt a stab of pain in her chest. had he just come back to claim the rest of his belongings?

Half an hour later, he re-emerged with a large, sealed cardboard box. He set it at her feet. "I think you're friend Mr Potter can probably find a better use for these than I can. Would you please see that he gets them?"

She nodded, still struck dumb, but now by surprise.

"Thank you. Now, I'm going for a shower, but when I come down, we have some things to talk about." Hermione nodded again, and swallowed around the lump of relief that had lodged itself in her throat.

AN: I'm going to have to take a break from this fic for a while. As you may have guessed from my increasingly irregular updates, real life has gone a little crazy and I'm finding it increasingly hard to find time to sit down and write... hopefully I should have everything back under control by mid December (and then you can look forward to a Christmas special sneaking in) if not it will definitely be in the New Year... one thing I can promise you is that I WILL finish this fic – even if it takes me three years (which I really hope it doesn't and doubt it will). Thank you in advance for your continued patience. Hugs and cookies, ForeverPandora.