Disclaimer: Clearly, Harry Potter and all associated books, movies and paraphernalia do not belong to me. Many thanks to JKRowiling and others for their patience.

A/N: Re-writes! I've done it with at least three of these stories so far, and I have to beg forgiveness and indulgence for doing it to this one as well. I didn't like the previous version, so I fixed it. This is the vastly improved story for "Paradise Lost"!

Orders Given

June, 1998

'Professor McGonagall.' Harry's voice was cool as he greeted his former Head of House, green eyes skimming over her. Minerva felt her heart contract briefly. Somewhere on his journey from school boy to powerful man, they had diverged, and the deep affection she had felt for the year-old orphan that Dumbledore had laid on the Dursleys doorstep had surrendered to a painful wariness of the boy's volatile temper and wild – if often correct – hunches, an attitude far more resembling Severus Snape's impatience than her previous indulgence.

'You have found the last of them?' She eyed the opaque door intensely, wishing to see through oak and wards to what lay within.

'We have,' he responded curtly. 'Has…has Granger figured out how to disarm them?' He stumbled over Hermione's last name, the sound unfamiliar on his tongue, roughened by disillusionment.

'Yes. Hermione and Severus believe they have,' Minerva replied, using their first names deliberately. She was watching the young wizard's face, and was not surprised to see the tightening of his jaw and the ice in his eyes when she casually dropped the name of her ex-colleague. She allowed disappointment to colour her voice when she next spoke.

'We could not be doing this without them,' she reminded him, her blue eyes piercing as she gazed at him. 'Remember that, Harry.'

The glance he levelled at her was harsh by virtue of its total impersonality, his emotions locked into place behind a mask that forcefully recalled the wizard he hated so.

'If traitors are our only means of victory, do we still win? We have agreed to disagree on this point, Professor.' he said, dipping his head in a semblance of courtesy before leaving her to stare at the warded door.

Minerva sighed as she listened to his footsteps retreating, climbing the stairs and pattering away into silence. Secrets. Her husband had been a master of them – both of keeping them and retaining unity in spite of them. Without his guiding hand, the Order had fallen into disarray. Harry's violent dislike and distrust of Snape had spread first to Hermione, then to his ex-professor and finally tainted everyone who had sided with her at Hermione's trial. 'We must stand united.' Albus' dying wish.

One they were looking at failing to achieve.

Minerva's tartan robes moved tiredly as she swung around and followed Harry up the stairs. Part of her struggle was that she couldn't blame the members of the Order who whispered questions of Snape's loyalty. Would she believe her own story if Albus himself hadn't told her it was true?

~888~

January, 1997

Hermione stared into the faces of her dearest friends as Ginny smoothed her hair, years of watching her mother blindly guiding the daughter's fingers to automatically soothe where they could.

'Feel better?' Ron's lopsided smile pinched the older Gryffindor witch's heart, and she experienced a fierce, furious wish that she had never broken up with him, that she had steadfastly ignored the intoxicating throbbing in her blood for a professor who now never even glanced in her direction…

'A little,' she lied, cutting short that line of thought before it could infuriate her yet again and bring fire whipping to the surface to hum in her veins. The elemental magic born of their bonding seemed to have largely gone into remission; on some days she barely noticed its existence anymore. It no longer thundered through her, a cascade of magic reacting to its other half, but any strong emotion brought it howling in her arteries, and it took somuch effort to calm herself again.

'Professor McGonagall is going to be up later.' Ginny's hand had stopped running through Hermione's curls, and Hermione could hear the younger girl's hesitation at dropping in this piece of information.

'Why?' she asked, tensing. If Madam Pomfrey had told Professor McGonagall of her condition, what would her Head of House think? Hermione could practically hearthe prim recrimination in the stern woman's voice.

'Because I talked to her.' Ginny's brown eyes met Hermione's. 'I told her we were worried, that you weren't eating or sleeping.' Her eyebrow quirked upwards. 'Lavender can hear you sometimes, screaming in your sleep.' And crying.An irrational resentment seized Hermione at the thought of Lavender telling others about her nightmares, but she dismissed it. Truthfully, Hermione couldn't imagine that she wouldn't have done the very same if one of her roommates was having consistent nightmares.

'If Lavender isn't careful who she talks to, you'll have to share space with me on Rita Skeeter's "Disturbed and Dangerous" column,' she told Harry, trying to recover a sense of humour and mask her irritation. The medi-witch's revelation that morning still shocked Hermione, and she was trying to hold off thinking about the implications that spun from a pregnancy, especially one at this time, in her current position...and since the father was thatman...

At least I know now why this strange magic has become so easy to control.The bond was, after all, a procreative force. Flamma, Terra, Aqua and Ether had accomplished what they set out to do.

'Hermione? We all have Quidditch,' Harry was smiling apologetically as she re-focused on loss-tarnished green eyes, and he squeezed her hand. 'We'll be back up after practice.'

'All right,' she tried to return the smile, knowing that it twisted strangely on her mouth, and nodded, clamping down on her urge to beg them to remain, not to leave her to sort through the thickening swamp of thoughts and fears she so desperately did not want to confront.

'Sleep,' came Ginny's quiet advice. Ron's parting half-smile wrung her heart further as she watched them all tromp out. Lavender was luckier than she knew. Or perhaps, Hermione was simply stupider than anyone had ever guessed. She hadn't wanted to deceive Ron about her lukewarm feelings for him, but if she had perhaps focused a little more on him and a little less on the snide, Byronic prat who lived his life in a dungeon-

She angrily slammed her back against her pillows, the circular nature of her problem frustrating her further. Their souls were fused together. Even now, she didn't want Ron, simply the idea of what he represented: a real boyfriend, one who was gentle, funny, smart, passionate, protective and loving. Someone fate had denied her, binding her instead to a man who wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.

I love you. 'If you thought I enjoyed sharing my bed with a Mudblood, you were sorely mistaken.' They couldn't bothbe true...

The young witch felt hollowed out. The matched fury of their couplings had consumed her – skin and hair and mouths everywhere, their minds forever touching when their bodies had separated. A fulfilment so complete it was indeed a melding of two people. After such unity, she knew she could never expect to love another so fully. But at least then she would not hate them with a passion so strong it coursed through her like poison.

Hermione was drifting into a restless half-sleep when a hand wrinkled and softened with age brushed her forehead, and her eyes snapped open, meeting the deep-sea blue of her Head of House. Instead of the stiff disappointment the younger witch feared, McGonagall's voice was quieter and kinder than Hermione had ever heard as she asked, 'How do you feel?' Her concern was so blatantly genuine that Hermione nearly burst into tears. Instead, she controlled the impulse and replied blandly:

'I'm fine, Professor. Thank you for looking in on me.'

Dismissal and lies all in one breath. McGonagall frowned as she seated herself on a stool. The girl had acquired more of Severus than she thought. But the Head of House had seen the rainbow of emotions before the shutters had slammed behind her student's eyes, and she wasn't going to be tossed out so easily by this slip of a girl.

'Hermione.' The Gryffindor froze. She could not recall Professor McGonagall ever having called her by her first name. 'Hermione, listen to me.' McGonagall tucked an errant strand of hair back from the young woman's too-pale face, capturing her attention with the motherly gesture. 'The burden you carry is a heavy one,' her professor said slowly, 'and you should not carry it alone.' Lavender's words in their dormitory last night flitted through Hermione's mind, and she pursed her lips. Had Lavender and Ginny togethercalled on Professor McGonagall?

Or did she know everything already? Hermione's eyes dropped to study her linens, trying to strangle a rush of embarrassment.

'Your friends are worried about you. And if you do not think they can help, there are others of us happy to keep your counsel. Myself,' she started. 'Viviane Vector would be delighted to guide you in anypath. Aurora Sinistra. And, of course, Poppy.' Her nod down the ward indicated the nurse's office. 'Do not feel that you don't have support.'

Following this short speech, she favoured Hermione with a long look, as if expecting the younger witch to start confessing then and there. Hermione merely nodded and gave her a small, tight smile.

'Thank you, Professor,' she replied quietly, enforcing formality. It seemed that her Head of House did not know about her pregnancy. If Hermione had her way, she never would. 'But I will be fine. I think I've just been overworking myself.'

~888~

As Minerva McGonagall sat in the hospital wing with her withdrawn student, the Headmaster of Hogwarts stared at his Defence Against the Dark Arts professor across his large oak desk.

For the first time in their acquaintance, Albus Dumbledore had been rendered speechless. The thought gave the sallow, exhausted wizard seated across from him absolutely no pleasure. The blue eyes had gone from flat and cold to angry and contemptuous, to wondering, to amazement and were now hovering near understanding – a comprehension that he didn't want, and wished he didn't have, but after all, Dumbledore had been one of Severus Snape's primary instructors in warfare as well as life, and the man's actions, while unorthodox, reflected more of the headmaster's own calculations of risk and benefits than the older man liked.

'I think you had better tell her,' Dumbledore said after a long silence, his voice ragged.

'Absolutely not,' Snape snapped. 'She must know nothing – why do you suppose I have gone about this in precisely this manner?' He swallowed and averted his eyes, distress pulling at the corners as his voice grew hoarse. 'We...she...There is no fairytale ending,' he whispered. 'But there is an acceptable alternative. As long as she can be safe...'

He returned unforgiving eyes to his employer, regret submerged. 'Would you have me break her heart worse later, than have her hate me by the time I do what you have requested, as she will now? Would you have me risk her safety by giving her some false hope? Better for her to believe me no more than the heartless bastard I have made myself.'

Dumbledore gave him an even look, an incisive glance that made Snape desperately wish for an Invisibility Cloak. 'I think you should tell her allof it, Severus.'

'No,' the younger wizard whispered, horror and genuine fear threading his voice for the very first time. 'No… Headmaster…for the same reason you never wanted to inform Minerva, we cannot tell Hermione.'

~888~

'Harry?' Ron's voice suddenly broke the contemplative silence settled over the three teens as they trudged through the snow towards the castle, broomsticks slung over their shoulders, planning to skip returning to their dorms in favour of going up to the hospital wing, mud and all. 'Did you ever find out why Hermione went with McLaggen to Slughorn's party? She hasn't spoken to him once this term.'

Harry blinked. He had forgotten entirely, between mulling over Snape and Malfoy and then his constant worry for Hermione, to tell Ron and Ginny about Luna's baffling statement in Slughorn's smoke-clouded office, and that he had been unable to find both Hermione and Snape on the map that night when he had curled up in Gryffindor Tower. He hadn't even thought of the peculiar coincidence in his recent concern for his friend, and what had fascinated him six weeks ago now barely engaged his mind, seeming like child's play in the face of scrambling to understand Hermione's sudden despondency.

'Erm…not really, not McLaggen, no,' Harry fumbled. He hesitated. He had asked Hermione about her strange disappearance from Slughorn's party. She had given him an odd look when he had confessed to not seeing her on the Map, but brushed it away quickly, claiming to have used the Room of Requirement to escape her date. As to where Snape had vanished to, she hadn't known. In light of her spiralling depression, the raven-haired wizard found that he didn't particularly have a reason to even mention his snooping to the youngest Weasleys.

'Did you learn something else?' Ginny's voice intruded on his thoughts, a shrewd guess.

Harry opened his mouth to tell them about Luna and her outlandish observations, paused, and shook his head. 'Nothing more than Malfoy and Snape, like I told Ron.' Whatever troubled Hermione, Luna Lovegood's left-field theories were not what they needed to solve the problem.

'I think that Malfoy, Snape, and even McLaggen, are not the sources of Hermione's distress.' Ginny crystallized the thoughts of the trio with her slow words. 'The problem is something else. Something entirely different.'

'Which makes it worse, in a way,' Ron grimaced. 'If we don't know, how do we fix it?'

~888~

'Albus, I'm going to kill him!' Minerva McGonagall stormed past the heavy door as if it weighed nothing, the hefty wooden slab flying away from her rigid, outstretched fingers, startling her husband. He jumped and sent a silver ornament shaped like a spinning top flying off his desk to hum in circles as it vibrated over the floor, unnoticed by either professor. Though he could guess the subject of his wife's wrath – and was thankful the young man had left his office fifteen minutes prior and after much heated argument – he asked anyway.

'Who, my dear?' Dumbledore folded his hands over his newly-distributed papers. Minerva pinned him to his chair with a glower, pacing furiously in a manner far more reminiscent of their younger colleague than her usual poise.

'Severus, as you well know!' she snapped back, her tartan robes swishing over the rug behind her as she made another sharp turn near the window. 'Hermione Granger is currently lying in the hospital wing-'

'Poppy assures us she will make a recovery-' Her husband's blue eyes were just the right amount of wide innocence mixed with the proper dose of reassurance to fool most people. Unfortunately, his wife had had a great deal more access to his expressions over the years, and the look she turned on him now told Britain's most powerful wizard that his partner was certainly not in the mood for evasiveness. The Head of Gryffindor was intelligent and fiercely protective of all her House members. Even the deep support she had shown Severus since he had returned to Hogwarts as little more than a teen, begging for forgiveness or death, was stretched thin to the point of breaking given the state of the school's most brilliant student.

'Hang her recovery, and – if that's all you can say – hang you, Albus! Recovery? Bah! I have never set that girl a Transfiguration she couldn't do in one lesson since she accustomed herself to her power during her first month here at eleven years old. Now even Longbottom almost outstrips her. And it's not just my class. Filius says she's having enormous difficulty in Charms. Charms! When she got a hundred and twelve percent on her first final ever! Horace says her potions have rapidly dropped from being second-best to the worst he's seen in ages, and Viviane claims her Arithmancy work reflects none of the exemplary logic that, until Christmas, was her standard! "Recovery?" This is not some case of simple exhaustion and overwork. Something has happened to her, something severe, Albus, and it's sapping her magical strength and tremendous force of will. Severus mustbe behind it.'

Dumbledore waited until his wife had raged herself out and thrown herself into a chair on one side of his desk. Any of her students would have been shocked to witness such a display from their tight-lipped, strict and just Deputy Headmistress and Transfiguration professor. But thiswas the woman he had married, a combination of passionate caring, adoration of teaching and love for her charges, not the poker-backed authority figure who sat at his right hand at the head table. In many ways, his wife played a part just as Severus did. Just as he did.

A role he now had to perform for her.

At least Poppy had not told her the true nature of the problem, so that much was still under wraps.

'Merlin's Beard,' he heard her whisper from the armchair where she sat, and her spine seemed to lengthen as she sat straighter on the cushion. Dumbledore winced, powerless to stop her as he watched Minerva come to the correct conclusion right in front of him. 'Albus – did…tell me Severus didn't decide to satisfy the conditions of the bond?'

Dumbledore hesitated for a fraction of a second. Feigned ignorance would inflame her already-frayed temper further, and she was difficult enough to balance these days, as she was still putting none-too-subtle pressure on Severus to include her in the making of their plans. But telling her…what would she do to his spy? Or her student?

'Yes,' the old wizard replied tiredly, pushing his chair back from his desk, eardrums throbbing prematurely in expectation of her explosion. 'He did.'

She was on her feet and to the doorway in a flash. The over one-hundred-pound door slammed against the stone wall once more as she thrust it open without conscious effort. 'I'm going to kill him,' she repeated as she started down the stairs.

'Minerva,' her husband's voice stopped her in her tracks at the top step, and she twisted awkwardly, unwilling to reverse her forward motion. 'Minerva – you can't.'

Her eyes glittered diamond cold as she glared at him. 'Surely you don't approve?' The hoarseness of her whisper caught his breath in his throat, and he shook his head, unable to speak for a moment as overwhelming disappointment radiated from her.

'I do not. But he will explain himself to her. I have ordered it-'

A harsh, joyless laugh burst from her lips. 'Ordered? He has crushedher, Albus. Anyone who has taught her could see that through Darkness Powder. What good is an explanation that he offers only at your command?'

The sorrow in his eyes grew more pronounced. 'A great deal more than you might think, my love. Please trust me.'

Minerva cocked her head to one side, studying the lined, tired face she had known for so many years, a face that had become that of a gentle but impersonal stranger over the past months. She gave a tight nod. 'But when are you going to trust me, Albus?' she rejoined softly, and, without waiting for an answer, padded silently down the stairs, the soft movement of her feet a carryover from her tabby form.

Dumbledore's oak door closed automatically after a time, sealing him off from the darkness of the stairwell. Tears brimmed, unshed, in his eyelids and he sat back. It was beginning to spin out of his control. Severus' decision, while understandable and necessary, had added another, completely unforeseen factor to the equation, and the fights with his wife were getting worse as time continued to tick past. There were only a few months left – likely less than six – and he did not want to spend them arguing with her…

'…for the same reason you never wanted to inform Minerva,' Severus had said. The headmaster looked over to his phoenix as Fawkes readjusted himself on his perch, one liquid eye staring beadily at his master. 'Perhaps it is time to tell them both,' Dumbledore said to the flashy gold-and-crimson bird. Fawkes cocked his head, fine plumage ruffling before he dipped his wicked beak twice, as if agreeing with his keeper's decision.

~888~

Hermione waited until she heard the latching of the hospital wing door, the sound that signalled her solitude, then silently swung herself out of bed, one hand flattening on her belly nervously. No matter that she would not be capable of feeling anything of the life stirring within for months – she had found her fingers constantly returning to her abdomen, splayed to find some physical confirmation of her growing baby.

Mentally, she ran through her infuriating conclusion again. The combination of charms she had used to prevent conception were practically failsafe, with a better than ninety-nine percent guarantee of success. The information had been in a spate of books she had devoured in the library ages ago, perhaps as far back as her fourth year, when a clumsy, boyish redhead had been the object of her imaginings when she had thought about casting them…

Something, then, had interfered with the spells – she was quite sure that she had not cast them incorrectly.

But the magic recognized and harnessed by the ancient wizards of the Order of the An'guin Weyr was an old, raw power. Hermione bit her lip as she considered too late what she had not thought of before – the bond's purpose was procreation, and all of the vast magic that formed the binding would be working to that end. Some forms of magic had been demonstrated to be stronger than others, like the blood protection that bound Harry to his aunt via the sacrifice offered up by his mother. It seemed likely that the older, almost feral magic of their binding, blessed by elemental power, abrogated the laws of the newer, tamer, wand-driven art that witches now practiced.

Leaving her adrift and rudderless on a seemingly-endless sea. She had no plans to contend with her current condition. No knowledge that would help her smooth it over, or "fix" it.

At the age of six, Hermione had discovered her mother's day calendar spread on the kitchen table between a pile of messages jotted down by their secretary and her father's rapidly-cooling coffee. Transfixed, she had painstakingly read aloud the map of Jane Granger's day, and eagerly turned the page to find more – tomorrow, and the day after, and the week after...

The tiny witch had taken pen to paper, her tongue trapped between her teeth as she unhesitatingly imitated the hours and dates from the large, leather-bound book in shaky handwriting.

From that moment to this, Hermione Granger had never lacked for a plan.

Now she stood without one, and more than her life hinged on the decisions she would make.

A child. Her education. Harry Potter. Some of these things were mutually exclusive. What would she do with a helpless dependent? What couldshe do? A war zone was no place to raise a baby...

'Miss Granger, dear?' She realized that she had stopped in the middle of the ward, her original errand totally forgotten, and allowed the concerned matron to steer her gently back between soft linens and pour her another dose of the nutrient mixture that the witch and her developing foetus needed. As the Calming Draught she had liberally added took effect and her patient's eyelids fluttered to be half-closed, Madam Pomfrey rocked back in her chair, allowing worry to permeate her hazel eyes.

She folded her hands in her lap as she considered the face of the wraith-like, almost-white sixth-year framed by a riot of lustreless curls. The news of her pregnancy had clearly come as a great shock to Hermione. The widening of her eyes, the way her fingers had opened, as if suddenly nerveless, allowing the potion to shatter on the floor had betrayed the young woman's complete surprise. The paleness of her complexion, heightened by the deep smudges under her eyes, left no doubt as to her poor state of health. Never a big girl, the nurse estimated she was down at least fifteen pounds from before the holidays, and the chances of her child's survival were not as high as they should be. The medi-witch pursed her lips. In her current state, there was little conceivability that Hermione Granger could successfully carry a baby to term, should she want to...

...and the father? As a professional, it was her duty to ensure that both parents at least discussed it, so that each voice might be heard. She had seen more than one fight between couples in this hospital, boys who were uninterested or too interested in their offspring making demands of their partners...

But though she had her suspicions, the girl would have to reveal the paternity for such rights to be granted.

~888~

The curtains were pulled tightly about her, the only occupied bed in the ward glowing with a beacon's brightness from winter's refracted moonlight. A glance towards the dark nurse's office at the far end told him that Madam Pomfrey was sleeping, but Snape closed the door silently and flicked his wand to soundlessly cast Muffliatobefore padding towards the bed that held his bondmate. The matron was a notoriously light sleeper, and to have her awaken to see him creeping through the hospital like a love-sick teenager would cause more trouble than he cared to handle.

Sliding a hand between the slit in the white privacy screen, the professor eased himself to Hermione's bedside a breath at a time, wishing he could hurry, not daring to wake her. Every pregnancy reacted differently to the many available potions, which made it unlikely that she had been dosed with anything stronger than a Calming Draught – and wouldn't be until Poppy was satisfied that her body could handle them.

As the sheet finally slipped over his left shoulder to enclose him completely inside the screen, Snape allowed his hungry eyes to devour his bondmate for the first time in four weeks.

He heard the hoarse gasp tear from his throat, ribs pressing painfully against his lungs. Where was the vibrant woman he had left in the Room of Requirement, the lively face that had burst so eagerly into his office?

'Better for her to believe me no more than the heartless bastard I have made myself.'The words he had spoken a bare handful of hours earlier rang empty as he gazed at the evidence of his handiwork. She looked little better than the Inferi causing such a panic up and down the country. Sickness boiled in him. So white. It was too easy to believe that the cinnamon eyes would open lifeless in her ashen face.

I wished to spare you. To preserve some small part of who you had been. Not to chain you to the burden you will now wear. But it is too late.

A rickety inhale finally came, followed by another, and a third. In through his nose, out through his mouth...the water pricking his eyes had to be kept at bay.

'You must speak to the girl, Severus. This is not a request.'Dumbledore's order had been clear.

A long finger reached out to gently spiral around a lock of hair stretched carelessly across the pillow, savouring the texture – neither coarse nor fine, but simply hers – and resisting the urge to bury both hands in the mane.

A reluctant moment later, he bent to brush his mouth across her forehead, retreating as she turned towards his lips in her sleep.

~888~

Hermione awoke quite suddenly in the morning, her bladder letting her know in no uncertain terms that staying in bed was notan option. She quickly made her way to the loo, frowning. A strange pall had settled on her overnight. Sorrow of a different shade than her own endless well of depression seeped through her, and her dreams had included the presence of another, a dark figure protecting her from a vast ocean of pain...

She exited the bathroom to see Madam Pomfrey standing next to her rumpled bed sheets, nutrient concoction in hand. 'I was wondering if your dear friends had persuaded you to run off with them,' the matron said with a faint smile as she pressed the cup into Hermione's hands. The Gryffindor's mouth twitched. The nurse had never been very appreciative of their abrupt departures from her care.

As she drank, she was aware of the humming magic skating across her body, diagnostic spells and check-up routines flowing in long streams of colour before the medi-witch, analysed and erased before Hermione could ask what each meant.

By the time she had swallowed the last of the largely tasteless, mushy potion, Madam Pomfrey was nodding to herself.

'In truth, Miss Granger, I can't see why you should remain here,' she announced briskly. 'I require you to take bed rest today, and recommend it through the weekend. You also must start eating all three meals, and these-' a wave of her wand brought seven medium-sized vials to clink on Hermione's bed, '-taken every morning with breakfast should restore the correct balance to your blood and ensure that your child is getting what he or she needs from your body.'

'I...thank you,' Hermione stammered.

'You are, of course, welcome to stay if you think that you will rest easier in the ward. I will be glad to restrict all visitors if you need some time to come to terms with what has happened.' She gave the girl a compassionate look as she added slowly, 'And I strongly recommend speaking to the father.'

Hermione's hand fisted around her white linens, nails biting her palm at this suggestion and the little colour in her cheeks drained instantly.

'You needn't tell me who it is,' the older woman hastily tried to reassure her. But the student's hunched shoulders did not relax.

'I...the father...' her voice roughened, and Hermione cleared it ruthlessly, forcing the painful truth past her lips. 'The father will not want it.'

'Miss Granger – you only just found out yourself...can you be so certain?' Madam Pomfrey protested.

A flash of something ice-cold flared in the young woman's eyes, and the matron's heart twisted in empathy. There was no doubt as to the hatred there – or to the inferno that kept it going.

'I am absolutely sure.'

'Well...that is between you and him,' the nurse said, striving to maintain her neutrality. She gestured to a stack of books and glossy leaflets on the side table that Hermione hadn't noticed.

'These are for you,' she told the girl. 'Diet, nutrition and exercise for the healthiest pregnancy possible. A selection of books on child-rearing.' Her hand deftly plucked a blue-and-white pamphlet from the jumble threatening to hurtle over the edge of the table. 'This one is from an adoption agency.' She saw the startled jerk in Hermione's hand, the small fingers reaching to take it automatically yanking back, as if burned.

'I am not trying to hint at anything, but you have an incredibly important decision in front of you – one that needs to be made with some speed. You are a little more than six weeks along, so you have time for your usual, thorough research, but it must be a top priority. Adoption is one of your options, as, of course, is keeping your child. Both present you with problems to be carefully considered.' She took a deep breath and pulled a small flipbook from the chaos.

'Abortion is your third possibility, though I urge you to think very strongly before embracing it. You have already begun to bond to the child, and the longer you wait, the more difficult it will become. The method is physically much easier in the wizarding world than I understand it to be in the Muggle one, but nothing eases the pain of loss.'

Hermione nodded reluctantly, taking the red booklet from the matron and replacing it with the stack on the table, mentally filing it under the "Last-to-be-Read" column in her mind. Over the summer, she had grown increasingly aware of the Muggle world's obsession with this subject, and had never quite understood why something so intensively private had been made the object of public speculation.

But she had never imagined herself having one, and automatically shied from the prospect.

The nurse handed the Gryffindor her school robes, gently stroking the girl's hair as Hermione stared with wide eyes at the books facing her, feeling only slightly less lost than she had the day before. 'My door stands open to you at any time of day or night. No question is too trivial, no ache too insubstantial. I have no issue with helping you get what you desire, young woman. And I very much want you to be sure what that is.'

~888~

Snape's black eyes lifted from where his head bent to grade papers, covertly watching his class. Since Longbottom's near-fatal accident during first term, the sixth years had been diligent workers, seldom upsetting desks or even each other as they concentrated on their silent technique. The professor narrowed his eyes as he watched James Potter's son flick his wand to no avail, green eyes focussed as if his intense gaze alone would bring results. Snape sighed. In spite of his hard words regarding Potter's acumen in his classes, he knew the boy excelled in Defence – another irony, considering the other similarities between the boy and himself, pieces of a puzzle he had no desire to piece together but was too intelligent to ignore.

He had rounded a corner last term to come upon a sight that would alter his view of the Boy-Who-Lived for the rest of his life. Standing in the torchlight, silent and brooding and without his constant companions, Harry's slightly rumpled black robes, hunched shoulders and lengthening hair falling carelessly over his scar had reminded the professor sharply of himself as a youth. For the first time, the boy had truly been someone other than the son of his nemesis and the current bane of his existence. Snape had left him alone in an uncharacteristic display of restraint. It was twenty minutes outside curfew, worthy of at least thirty points and a detention, but he had silently switched direction, an odd compulsion not to disturb the unlikely hero directing his footsteps.

But Potter's talent for Defence was not bleeding into his class work now. Snape's deliberate, long-standing attention to wordless duelling this year was solely for the benefit of the Chosen One and his friends. Whether anyone else in the class ever learned how was irrelevant, if only the three were capable-

Without thinking, his black gaze sought and settled on Hermione. A quick trip on Friday evening, ostensibly to check on the medicinal stock, had revealed the hospital utterly empty, and he had been forced to catch a meagre glimpse of her in the Great Hall. Her brief sojourn under the fussy medi-witch's care had taken the edge off her pallid complexion. A tinge of colour stroked her otherwise fairie-pale features, and she looked well-rested for the first time since that singularly unpleasant evening in his office.

And fire had returned to her large, brown eyes. The huge orbs had latched onto him as she had entered the class room, and he could not only see, but feel the fury that ignited, catching his breath as he prepared to call the room to order. Her knowledge of the child within had changed her. The spirit he was terrified of having broken flashed strongly, gold-and-orange flickers of light sprinting through her irises.

'You must speak to the girl, Severus. This is not a request.'As he considered the young woman in front of him, her hair plaited, her robes loose with weight loss, Snape tapped his fingers on the essay he had been grading, crimson-inked vitriol masquerading as comments forgotten in favour of wondering how to make her listen. For he could sense, through her fledgling Occlumency skills, that she would never accede to a request coming from him.

On the other hand, she has always obeyed orders, he thought grimly. Would she dare to defy him if he commandedher to speak to him? This new Hermione, hard and fragile at the same time, like a porcelain doll, might simply walk away.

He tensed as her copper-headed partner's wand flicked and a bit of light jetted from the end, then relaxed as the weak attempt dissipated against the bubble of her shield. The class was continuing to practice the Repulsor Hex. Worry for the life Hermione hadn't known existed at the time had almost compelled him to remove her from the class at the beginning of the month. But they practiced mostly Defence that did not require partners, and when they did, the two boys who claimed her were so gentle, and her Shield Charm so strong, that she was safe. And it would have taken entirely too much explanation to have her removed from his class on a permanent basis, even with his strange (and still unexplained to the student body) banishment of her for a week and a half during the fall term.

Lest any of his students track the direction of his intense gaze, always a risk with older Slytherin students seeking the advantages of constantly-shifting power, Snape swiftly flickered his eyes over the rest of the room. His mouth twisted in an expression of concerned displeasure as his attention landed on the platinum blond head of Lucius Malfoy's son. He did not particularly like the boy, but there was no denying that the task Malfoy refused to share with the former Potions master was draining the young man, more steadily and dangerously than Granger's heartbreak had depleted her.

In truth, it was difficult to tell which one looked more sickly these days, his blond grey-eyed serpent or Minerva's wild-maned lioness. Snape's complimentary words, directed towards Slytherin's one-time favoured prince at the beginning of class, had seemed to wash over and through the boy without penetrating, and worry for another of his students had peaked. He suppressed a sigh, irony ringing in his thoughts. The Dark Lord's Rising had imposed a brutal seriousness on a soft world governed by House points, Quidditch matches and OWLs.

He watched Hermione move delicately, Shield Charm firmly in place as Ron Weasley half-heartedly attempted to Repulse her. The spell rebounded, and the red-head ducked, mouth twitching to smile as the spell dissipated against a stone wall. A younger Ron Weasley would have exulted in beating his best friend, always top of her class, but it seemed the youngest son in a long line had finally begun growing up. He might never match his friend's intelligence, but the intense loyalty that had so annoyed Snape when Weasley had followed his two friends into trouble without thought was smoothing into a fierce protectiveness that would well serve the Order, and guarded Granger better than she knew. Snape had been startled to notice this term – his world no longer narrowed to controlling his feelings for Granger and at the same time keeping the Dark Lord satisfied – that, like Draco Malfoy, Ronald Weasley was joining the ranks of teens merging into adulthood. The boy had displayed oddly adult emotions this term, making decisions that contradicted his attitudes from his childhood, establishing himself as separate from the generation that raised him.

Lost in his thoughts as he re-assessed the young minds which he had for so long dismissed as nuisances to be kept safe from their own disastrous desires and egos, Snape barely registered that class had finished. Only the rustle of bags slinging onto backs recalled him, and he spoke, knowing that the headmaster would not tolerate a delay.

'You must speak to the girl…'

'Miss Granger, my desk,' he ordered over the din. He felt a shaft of surprise, followed by a swift flow of fear and loathing before she choked off their connection with Occlumency.

He did not return to grading papers as he waited, knowing that the discourtesy of making her wait would inflame her further, and that he needed to court her good will. Instead, he made a show of looking over the exiting class, his acidic tongue kept in check by sheer nervousness. A simple apology would never suffice. What could he say to her?

His black eyes had settled once again on her, and his glare sharpened, taking in her two bodyguards. Potter and Weasley stood solidly behind her, both of them dwarfing the witch and causing Snape to wonder briefly, irrelevantly, when the two had grown to be six feet and higher.

'I do not believe your cohorts need to be here, Miss Granger. When I ask for one of you, I do not expect the whole team.'

Harry felt Hermione stiffen, and placed one palm flat against her back, transmuting silent support though his wind-roughened fingers. Hermione had declined to tell them anything more once she had been dismissed from the hospital wing, and a circumspect visit to Professor McGonagall by Ginny and Harry had yielded no further results. But the stay in the ward had at least changed Hermione's eating and sleeping habits, even if her magic remained weakened and spotty. For now, that she had improved was good enough. But if Snape decided to start heckling her again…now that she was just beginning to look better…

Snape felt her measuring him as she thought through his command, her large brown eyes shot through with gold and orange from flame. Hermione felt the urge to purposefully defy him, to force him to speak to her in front of the boys, but reason quenched revenge. His work for the Order was too valuable to risk exposing an ex-lover's quarrel to Ron and Harry. 'Wait for me,' she ordered them gently, hands extending to touch each arm. They tilted their heads in acknowledgement, and eyes of jade and sea glowered at him evenly before they departed.

Silence. Then, 'What is it you require of me, Professor?' Her voice was neutral, but her eyes glittered, and he could not allow himself to react to the mingled pain and anger that flared there.

'I would – the headmaster wishes for me to speak to you. You will come to my office at eight.'

'No, sir,' she replied. Snape felt his stomach writhe at the sheer weight of brittle ice in her voice. 'I will not. If the headmaster wishes to speak to me, I will await his owl.'

She spun to follow her friends through the door. She did not dare to look at the thin face of her professor, which was twisted both with fury and vulnerability, as she stalked out.

~888~

'How was she after her day back in class?' Albus Dumbledore sat ensconced in a plush chair in Madam Pomfrey's office shortly after the nurse had finished an inspection of her precocious patient, pronounced her fit, and sent her to the Great Hall for dinner, accompanied by no fewer than five other students.

'She was all right. I have given her some supplemental potions to take with meals, assuming, of course, that she doesstill eat them?' The look she pinned Dumbledore with was one eerily like his own x-ray gaze, and he shifted uncomfortably.

'She did attend all three meals today,' he allowed.

'She must go to all of them everyday, Headmaster, at least as long as she is so deficient in practically every vitamin and mineral that she requires to keep herself and the child healthy!' The vehemence in Madam Pomfrey's voice surprised him, and Dumbledore nodded his agreement.

'Relax, Poppy. I have every intention of ensuring that Miss Granger takes care of herself. And I think you will find that most of her friends do as well – even though I am quite certain that none of them are aware of the reason.'

The nurse nodded shortly, and sipped her tea. Dumbledore recognized a question lurking in the medi-witch's dark grey eyes and waited for a long moment before prompting her. 'What is it, Poppy?'

Madam Pomfrey took a deep breath and put aside her tea, her frank eyes once again meeting his, total candour shining there.

'The father. It's Severus, isn't it?'

His surprised hesitation betrayed him, and the nurse's lips thinned, eyes flashing with rampant disapproval. 'I see.'

'I doubt it,' Dumbledore sighed, a weary hand stroking his beard.

'Then a little illumination on the subject would be gratifying,' came her tart reply. 'This...license is unlike you, Albus. A professor carrying on so with one of his students? Why has he not been exposed to the Wizengamot? Why has she not been expelled?'

'Poppy – think!' Dumbledore commanded, and though he said it quietly, she saw deep disappointment in his eyes. 'Of course it seems like an open-and-shut case. Hogwarts' by-laws have made no exceptions for this kind of behaviour since being instituted two-hundred years ago. Were it anyone else, the governors would have received word long before a pregnancy could expose them, and the offending couple removed.'

He sat back in his seat, his frown cutting his forehead. 'But it is not "anyone else." Severus Snape must remain at Hogwarts – you know better than most what he endures to keep the Order informed – a task more important than any young woman's heart or innocence, as much as it pains me to say it. Hermione, likewise, has to stand by Harry Potter. Her intelligence has served him well and he will need her in times to come.

'But even those reasons aside...they are Bound, Poppy. Unconsciously and irremovably. They no more desire these circumstances than you or I. It has placed both of them in worse danger than they already were, and added an impossible variable to their world. Should I punish them for something they have not purposefully created and, in fact, struggled against until the alternative to succumbing was insanity?'

The medi-witch sat very still. Bound. She had suspected something similar months ago...but never a connection of such power...

'I'm sorry,' she finally whispered. 'For what I have been thinking of him. And her. And you.'

'No apologies are necessary. I believe that I might have reacted the same way to such unsettling news.'

'Will their connection cause any differences in her condition?' Pomfrey asked after a moment, trying to re-negotiate common ground. 'Unforeseen difficulties?'

'Your guess is much better than mine, I'm sure,' the headmaster answered. 'I have only a hazy idea of pregnancy and birth under normal circumstances – and to my knowledge, you are the first to observe this decidedly phenomenal event in almost a millennium. I suspect at least many of the basics will remain the same – a child is a child, surely, regardless of the manner of its conception.'

'Indeed. In that case...' another pause, and then the witch forged ahead, the memory of overwhelming pain warping Hermione's mouth spurring her forward, 'In that case I have just one more question.'

A flutter of his good hand indicated that she should continue.

'Hermione Granger is convinced that Severus does not want this child. Nor did I see him come to visit her while she was here. What are his intentions towards his baby and the mother?'

'To keep them safe,' Dumbledore answered honestly. 'He is...taking steps...now to repair what he has nearly destroyed. I believe Hermione's fears will prove to be unfounded.'

'I would advise him to make his move soon. Her loyalty and sense of forgiveness are extremely well developed, but if he pushes her too far for too long, her need for justice will place her beyond his reach. He is very nearly there already.'

'He will be speaking to her within the next few days at the latest,' Dumbledore assured her, rising. 'Hermione Granger is a remarkable young woman. I don't think she's written him off completely.'

A quick search of the kindly, but neutral features told the nurse that she would have to be content with such vague reassurances. She dipped her head. 'I hope you are right.'