Just a quick update, but a fun chapter to write. Enjoy, and thank you so much for reviewing!
Chapter 30
She was eleven weeks pregnant. Barely enough to restrict her from brewing love potion, and definitely not pregnant enough to keep her from brewing sleeping draughts for the infirmary.
And yet, despite this, Slughorn still began his class saying, "Alright, everyone begin your brewing."
The class moved to their workstations, and Hermione tagged along with Draco until Professor Slughorn motioned her forward, inviting her to stand before his desk. "Miss Granger, perhaps you'd prefer to simply observe today?"
She gaped and the entire class seemed to stare. Slughorn looked so pleased with his attempt at subtlety, but it was clear what he meant. Which could only have come to his attention if someone had told him, because she wasn't even properly showing yet.
"I'm perfectly fine to brew, Professor," she replied calmly, hoping her classmates would only think of it as a small illness or something.
Slughorn didn't take the hint, giving her a frown. "Are you sure, Miss Granger? Given your … condition?"
The class was rapt with attention as she blushed, her face heating up to the point where she was certain she was fire engine red. Harry and Ron looked at her pitifully from across the room, and she couldn't even look at them.
Draco tried his best to help her. "I will partner with her, sir."
"Oh, I'm sure you would, my boy," Slughorn said proudly. "Gallant young man. No, we have plenty enough for partners."
"Sir," Hermione drew his attention again, "I have no condition that inhibits me producing Dreamless Sleep."
He chuckled and shook his head, looking at her pitifully. "I admire your spirit, Miss Granger, but I must insist. Professor Snape has brought to my attention that you should sit out the more volatile brews for the time being."
Her blood became ice in her veins. Severus. Ignoring her for three weeks, grabbing her that day in Ollivander's hideaway … now he had informed Slughorn. Oh, that man was going to get the end of her wand.
"Well," Hermione brushed herself off and grabbed her bag, ignoring the stares from her classmates, "I happen to know that Professor Snape has no final class on Fridays, so I'll just go and check with him, shall I? He is, apparently, the one running your Potions class, Professor."
Most professors would have taken points off of Hermione, but not Slughorn. Not while she was pregnant. He simply chuckled at her, waggling hi finger, his faked-omnicience finally revealing her secret to the class.
"No need to be upset, Miss Granger," Slughorn insisted. "I understand, you know, hormones being part of the territory and all that, however I have an excellent tonic that can help with that."
Murmurs broke out along the classroom. The first being Lavender Brown. Everyone seemed to hunch over their workstations, whispering among each other.
"She's pregnant, must be." "Oh, god, what?" "She had sex?" "Aren't the wards supposed to stop that?" "Well, she's not in the dorms anymore."
She saw red. Involuntarily, her magic surrounded her as if she were being threatened, protecting her. It shoved desks out of the way as she barreled from the room. Nagini stuck his head out of her book bag, reacting to her anger. That resulted in even more gasps as she trudged from the rooms.
Draco was following behind her, she could hear his posh, expensive shoes following behind her. "Granger! Granger, wait!"
"I'm going to kill Severus Snape, and don't you dare stop me!" She yelled. Students who weren't in class turned to stare at the girl who was threatening the most terrifying man in school. "I have had it!"
"Granger, think this through!" Draco caught up to her, gabbing her arm. She ignored him, simply yanking her arm away from his and continuing on her single-minded pursuit of revenge. "You can't just attack someone!"
"I'm a Gryffindor!" Hermione announced strongly. "He knew he would get this when he did it, he just doesn't care!"
"Granger-"
"Take my bag and put it in my room," Hermione told him sternly. "I don't want Nagini to see this."
Draco stopped moving the moment she put the bag on his shoulder, as if afraid of Nagini biting him. "You're leaving me with a snake? Granger? Granger!"
She left him behind. There's no way she wanted anyone to see what she was going to do to the man, which was humiliating and degrading but he deserved to lose his infernal self-control for this conversation.
She opened to the door and without words or warning sent her magic to him and yanked him into the air by his foot. His face went hard, knowing exactly what she was doing to him and for once she felt no shred of remorse.
"How dare you?!" she slammed the door shut behind her. "How dare you?!"
Severus glared, arms crossed and the picture of self-control. "Miss Granger, I'm about to put you in detention for the remainder of your brief time with us. Explain."
"Explain?!" she shrieked. "You told Slughorn I was pregnant! That man can't keep his trap shut and now the entire class knows I'm pregnant, you git!"
She let his fall back to the ground more gently than she was feeling and glared at him. "You ignore me for weeks, you are a git when we do talk … but I didn't think you would do something like this to me!"
At her own admission, she felt unbearably vulnerable. She knew tears wouldn't sway him, but she couldn't help as she started sobbing. In an effort to preserve her dignity when Severus rose, she tried to switched to margay form.
Nothing. She couldn't transform. It dawned on her that her body wasn't the one she remembered because it was pregnant. Pregnancy was taking her dignity, her privacy, and now, her freedom to be the animal she was. Her failed attempt was enough to make her inconsolable.
She expected anger or curtness from Severus, or at least to be dumped somewhere to calm down. Instead, he knelt by her and pressed a comforting hand to her shoulder.
"I did not think this would happen," he murmured. "I'm so sorry, Hermione."
With a choked sob, she threw her arms around him and murmured her own apologies. He may not have heard a word of it, since she was buried in his neck, but she apologized for throwing him into the air, for yelling at him, for whatever it was that made him ignore her. She didn't want him to let go. She needed this comfort, something that even Voldemort didn't give her. Especially not the past few weeks. For now, she had Severus back and he was her friend again.
"Tell me what I did, because I want to be your friend again," she sobbed, clutching him desperately. "Please, Severus. Please."
She was begging him, and he couldn't deny her again. He sighed, pressed his pace into the curls on the top of her head. He could believe, for this moment, that she was his. After a moment, when she bagan to calm herself, he offered her the handkerchief in his pocket, determined to dry the tears.
"It was nothing you did, Hermione," he murmured in assurance. "I play my role, as you know. Your snake bodyguard means I can't be sure of my surroundings any longer. The Dark Lord is a possessive man, and even this, comforting you, could mean my death. Do you understand?"
"You mean he'd be jealous?" she griped. "We're not even like that. He couldn't-"
Severus shushed her. "You're naïve to his true brutality. You've seen parts of it, but you should know that he considers you his. None of his followers should so much as touch you, let alone hold you so … intimately."
He watched as her eyes widened, as she took stock of her position in his arms. He waited for the rejection and disgust that would come from their closeness, but surprisingly, none came. She simply giggled, earning an incredulous look.
"I never knew you could be in such an informal position, Severus," her voice shook with her previous tears, but there was a lightness now. A teasing. "You're right, if anyone say this they'd think you human."
He smirked at her, his ache abating slightly. She wasn't repulsed by him. "Well, we can't have that."
He rose to his feet and offered Hermione one of his skeletal hands and he accepted. She dabbed at her tears with the handkerchief, looking so aggravated at herself.
"I'm so sorry, Severus, I don't know why I reacted so strongly," she apologized again. "Maybe I am bloody hormonal. I never used to cry this often."
"Well, I provided a terrible catalyst." He brought her up to the DADA office, determined to not let her go until the last possible moment. "I'm sorry for what Horace did. The delicacy of the situation was impressed upon him, but I doubt he understood. We can assume the news will travel the school by dinner?"
He watched the fear in her eyes as she nodded, shame riddling her frame until she was nearly hunched. "Miss Granger, the important people know and understand. Anyone else can sod off."
Her eyes widened at his language, but he happily noted the sparkle returning to her eyes. He sat her in the armchair by his fireplace, bringing another from the opposite side of the room so he could sit with her.
"Where is your bodyguard?" He'd realized suddenly that her bookbag was gone, as was the serpent that enjoyed wrapping itself around her graceful neck. "Don't tell me you left her for Horace."
She giggled. "No, but it would serve her right. I gave my bag to Malfoy."
Now that was hilarious. The mental image of Malfoy losing all his straight-backed decorumas he quivered in front Nagini was an image he could chuckle at.
"So, er, Severus," she bit her lip, as if identifying a hard potion's ingredient, "are we really alright? I know you said we are, but I need a friend. I can leave Nagini sometimes, and I really do miss you."
His heart was set to burst at her innocent request. She missed him, she wanted to spend time with him, and she hadn't been scared off by his rebuffs. It was a strange experience for him. Mierva was similar in her tenacity, but her presence was more motherly. What was with these Gryffindor women that they became fixtures in his life?
"If you are discreet, I have no objections."
She beamed up at him , a bright light to everyone who could see. But before there conversation could progress, Draco burst through the office door holding Hermione's book bag at arm's length and looking absolutely green at the hissing snake that was coming out of it.
"Granger!"
