For a few seconds, no one dared to move or say anything.
"Pregnant?" Astrid looked her up and down, surprised.
"I told you," Snape's voice startled them, as it showed a certain tone of unexpected satisfaction. Everyone turned to him, surprised by his words, and Astrid's eyes glared at him with indignation.
"Really, Severus?" she asked irritated. "Of all the things you can say, would you choose that?"
Snape became aware of the eight pairs of eyes still fixed on him and shrugged. Astrid turned her attention back to her daughter.
"Don't pay any attention to him," she murmured, helping her to her feet.
"It's not possible, how did you know?" Kate asked, still shocked.
"It is not the first time that part of the house collapses due to the effects of a magical pregnancy. Can you take care of the wall?" Astrid asked, looking at her other children.
"You know that's not what I mean. It's the first time it's happened to me," Kate protested, looking at her father.
"The vampires smelled you during the Glasgow attack," he replied. "They made comments about the sweet smell given off by the healers who escaped from them," Kate's eyes widened, and she instinctively placed a hand on her belly.
"Let's talk about this calmly," Astrid intervened, pulling Kate's arm.
Snape and Narcissa followed, leaving the boys behind. When they were out of sight, Celine faced Ivan.
"You knew about that, didn't you?" she asked, with an accusatory voice. He made a guilty expression.
"If it's any consolation, I was trying to convince her to tell you," he defended himself.
"Dad's not going to like it at all," Adrien said. "He was already angry when she went to the attacks, imagine how he will react now that he knows she was pregnant when she put herself in danger."
"Merlin, she didn't even tell them that she has a boyfriend," Celine rubbed her hands nervously.
"Didn't you say that your parents already knew?" Draco asked, bewildered.
"No, I said that my parents suspected it. Is not the same."
"Do you know him?" Adrien looked at his brother.
Ivan avoided looking at him, studying how to rebuild the wall.
"I've seen him a couple of times," he confessed at the end. "Kate invited me to dinner at her apartment to introduce us."
Celine huffed, crossing her arms, and Adrien looked disappointed as well.
"You could have said something," she growled.
"It wasn't my secret, Celine."
"But now you can tell us, right?" Adrien insisted. "We are talking about our sister's boyfriend, not You-Know-Who's darkest secrets."
"How stubborn you are," Ivan muttered, crossing his arms. "Okay, I'll tell you, but this information hasn't come out of my mouth. And that goes for you too," he added, pointing to Harry and Draco. "His name is William Turner, he's a nurse, he's a muggle, but his little brother is a wizard, that's why he knows about the existence of magic," he explained. "They met at the hospital where mum works, when Kate did her internship before being accepted into St Mungo's. And yes, the baby has caught them by surprise, and they don't know what to do. Are you happy?"
Draco was about to ask if Snape wouldn't be upset at the idea of having a half-blood grandson, but stopped himself when he realized that it wouldn't matter too much in a family where the vast majority of the members were half-bloods. In fact, the conversation that took place inside the house revolved around a very different topic.
"But why were you hiding it? Why didn't you tell us anything?" Astrid asked.
"I didn't find the right time," she replied, knowing that it wasn't the best excuse.
"Kate, you are going to have a child, how can you say that you didn't find the time?" Astrid insisted.
"Too many things happened," Katherine explained. "More prisoners began to escape from Azkaban, you had problems with Dumbledore and Draco, the Dark Lord was back at it... I didn't want to distract you from your problems to take care of me. I know you would have dropped everything for me, and that might have put you in danger."
"Don't be silly, Kate, you are more important than all those things," Astrid said. "And we would never have been so careless as to put ourselves in danger," Katherine bowed her head, embarrassed.
"The important thing is that the baby is well," Narcissa intervened, trying to calm the atmosphere.
"Tomorrow, we go to the hospital, and we will check it out. Outbursts of magic during pregnancy are normal, but unpredictable. Celine made my spleen disappear," Astrid said. Kate ran a hand over her belly, worried. She then looked at his father, who had remained silent throughout the conversation, with an unreadable expression on his face.
"Don't you say anything?" she asked timidly.
"I want to talk to William," he said, earning surprised looks from the women.
"Why?"
"Call him to come," Snape insisted, and his voice brooked no reply.
Katherine looked at her mother, not knowing what to do, but finally got up and left the room to find the phone and call her boyfriend.
"Severus, what are you doing?" Astrid asked, looking at her husband.
"If I want to include William in the protection spell, I need him to be present," he answered briefly, shrugging his shoulders.
"You could have said it sooner," Narcissa scolded. "The poor girl is terrified."
"Terrified? I haven't spoken to her yet, she has no reason to be scared," Snape replied, grimly.
"Severus!" Astrid scolded him.
"What?"
"Don't be like that. It's not like we would have acted differently."
But Snape said nothing. Obviously, for him the situation was not the same.
OOO
Despite all his efforts to hide Astrid's existence, Severus began to fear that his fellow death eaters suspected something.
The first clue had been a seemingly harmless comment from lord Voldemort, alluding to the trace of ancient magic he had located in Severus. He was referring of course to the spell with which Dumbledore had united them in marriage, but the death eater had remained impassive, using Occlumency, and had lied hastily, saying that it was a protective shield.
His ruse, however, did not work with his more perceptive companions. Just as Narcissa had said, it was his excess of zeal and the intense secrecy with which he protected his private life that gave him away.
All death eaters had secrets and things to hide, but Severus was the only one who hid absolutely everything. Many wondered what exactly Severus was hiding with so much effort.
Increasingly worried, Severus realized that Narcissa was right, and that sooner or later, someone would end up discovering Astrid's existence. Perhaps the smartest thing would be to get ahead of events.
"We must reveal your existence, but in a way that we control the narrative," he explained to Astrid. She was listening to him very attentively, but not convinced.
"Are you crazy? After the deal you made with Dumbledore, are you going to bring everything to light?"
"It's not about giving all the information, just the most essential details," Severus insisted . "I'm not going to make a mass announcement, but maybe, if I introduce you to a few people... that will be more than enough to calm their curiosity and stop them from investigating me."
"But Severus, what will happen when they discover that I am a muggle?"
"That's the important part, you're not going to be a muggle. I will introduce you as a squib."
"But you told me that squibs have a magical imprint that muggles lack. Don't you think the death eaters will realize that I don't have any trace of magic? Or do you think the magic from the babies will camouflage me?" Astrid hugged her belly.
"No, we are not going to say anything about your pregnancy, it would be too risky. You will camouflage yourself with my magic."
"I don't understand."
"Narcissa has told me about this. It's a Bond Gem," Severus showed her a small, irregularly shaped stone that seemed to shine with a bluish halo. "It took me a long time to find it, but I think it could be the solution to our dilemma."
"Narcissa? Do you really trust her?"
"I already told you about our agreement."
"That doesn't mean she's trustworthy. How do you know she won't betray us? What if this stone is a trap?" Astrid looked at the Bond Gem with distrust.
"The lives of her future children are in my hands. Narcissa won't do anything to ruin her chances of becoming a mother."
"I can't believe you're playing with that," she sighed, shaking her head. But knowing Severus, she knew that nothing she said would change his mind, so she decided to trust his judgment. "And what is this stone supposed to do?" she picked up the gem and turned it between her fingers, looking at it curiously.
"If it is divided, the pieces of the gem remain in communication with each other. If you have one fragment and I have another, they should act as a bridge between us, and anyone observing you could notice a minimal presence of magic, which would be nothing more than an echo of mine," he explained. "It would be more than enough for you to pass yourself off as a squib."
"And your friends... will they be content with that?" Astrid was not convinced. "Won't they investigate my family tree?"
"We will falsify your family history. After all, no one knows who your parents were," Severus spoke with more confidence than he felt.
Astrid's question caused him concern. Precisely, the death eaters who were showing the most insistence on knowing their secrets were the most obsessed with blood purity. He hoped Narcissa would be able to make up a good story to explain Astrid's existence.
OOO
The Snape's kitchen was flooded by chaos.
The large room was filled to the brim with people moving from one place to another, talking, laughing, working hurriedly, and somehow, keeping dinner going.
Harry had seen similar hustle and bustle at the Weasleys' house, but usually Molly was always in charge of the preparations, controlling everything, and sometimes taking advantage of the help of others.
The Snapes, however, had no such hierarchy. In the kitchen, everyone made decisions, argued over the preparation of recipes, and moved kitchen utensils from one place to another without asking others.
Harry and Draco were dragged towards a counter, and before they knew it, they were chopping vegetables, surrounded by the bustling animation that seemed to be the custom on Sunday afternoons. They both looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes, without saying anything. At that point, nothing could surprise them about that family.
The general topic of conversation centered on William's imminent arrival. There were jokes about it, and laughter at poor Kate's expense was guaranteed. However, Harry could see that no one was being overly cruel, and that, deep down, everyone in the family regarded the recent events as something positive.
When William finally appeared, Kate introduced him to her parents, and the four of them stood a little apart, while the others waited in the kitchen, so as not to interrupt them.
Adrien, Ivan, and Celine were spying from the kitchen door, accompanied by Narcissa. The four of them joked in low voices, pondering the details of the awkward meeting that was taking place in the living room.
Draco looked at his mother in bewilderment, not getting used to the kind and lively way that Narcissa had to treat the boys, with a joy that was not at all fake, but that contrasted with the cold behavior she had with him, and therefore of course, with Harry, whom she ignored, as if she didn't see them or didn't want to spend energy dealing with them. Celine, realizing everything that was happening, approached him.
"Don't worry," she whispered, taking his hand.
"Is she always like this?" he asked, in a low voice, pointing his head towards his mother.
"I've never known her any other way," she responded, imagining the pain her words caused him.
Harry was also realizing that something strange was happening. He had already met Narcissa, and from experience he knew that she did not like muggles or half-bloods at all, but that vision contrasted with what he was seeing and with what the Snape siblings had told him.
He looked at Draco and guessed that the young man was as surprised as he was, as well as hurt and jealous. For a moment, he felt the aftertaste of cruel satisfaction at seeing young Malfoy like this, but then he remembered that something similar had happened to him. For years, Harry had watched his cousin be pampered by his aunt and uncle, while he had to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs.
It wasn't the same situation, since Draco had always had everything he ever wanted, but at that moment, seeing how Narcissa was joking with Ivan and Adrien while her own son remained isolated in a corner, ignored by her, Harry felt a kind of strange connection with him. Because he did know what it felt like to be ignored as if he were invisible, and sometimes despised, without being part of what his family was supposed to be.
He felt compassion for him, and then he remembered the conversation he had had with Dumbledore shortly before, understanding the moral: he should not judge others for what they did without first knowing what had driven them to be that way.
Harry understood that Draco was a normal teenager, like him, with his mistakes and flaws. A boy who would do anything to please his parents, to the point of becoming a death eater.
Before he could think about what he was doing, Harry walked over to Draco and handed him one of the beers they had set to cool. He also opened two more, for Celine and himself.
Draco looked at him surprised but couldn't say anything. They looked into each other's eyes for a long time, measuring and evaluating each other, but without as much enmity as they used to share other times.
Was there some complicity in that gesture? They didn't know it, but at least they didn't insult each other. Were they friends? Of course not, but they weren't enemies either. For a moment it even seemed like they were smiling at each other.
Celine, who had seen everything, looked back and forth between them, and smiled. Then, she hugged them both tightly, surprising them.
"But how stupid you men are," she said, leaving the boys surprised.
Draco and Harry exchanged a look, as if to say, "What's wrong with her?" and they couldn't help but laugh too.
In silence, they proceeded to drink the beer.
OOO
Hundreds of kilometers away, totally oblivious to what was happening at the Snape's house, Ginny Weasley looked through a window, waiting to see a white owl appear.
She had not received any news from Harry since Dumbledore had called, and all the letters she had sent him were returned, undelivered and unanswered.
Ginny was worried, because although her uncles had tried to hide it from her, she had ended up finding out about the death eater attacks in Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as what had happened to Hermione's parents, and she had a feeling that Harry would be involved somehow in that dangerous situation.
Ginny was brought out of her reverie by a thunderous noise downstairs. It looked like something had fallen to the ground, breaking. She was alone in the house, so she became alert and left the room, wand in hand.
Instinct and mind screamed at her to hide and stay very still so as not to attract attention, but even so, she continued forward, very slowly, trying not to make noise, until she reached the living room. There she saw her aunt's huge cupboard, where the dishes were kept, lying on the floor, with the pieces of China scattered across the carpet.
The girl was very surprised, since the furniture was so big and heavy that it was impossible for it to have fallen on its own, and she approached the remains, being careful not to step on anything. The window panes were also broken, and Ginny could see her own reflection in the pieces of one of them, a little distorted. She also saw a hooded figure behind her.
She turned quickly, ready to defend herself, but the hooded man was faster than her and threw her back with a powerful beam.
Ginny rolled over, avoiding the second curse, and responded with a powerful spell. She continued moving, with her back against the wall, resisting as best she could, continuing to cast spells at her attacker.
She reached the kitchen door and slipped through it, narrowly avoiding the impact of a curse. Inside the kitchen, she bumped into another hooded man, who grabbed her by the arms, immobilizing her.
Ginny kicked him hard, shouting an incantation at the same time. The wizard's legs turned to jelly, and he fell to the ground, releasing her.
Ginny jumped on him, running towards the back door. If she managed to get out of the house, she could disappear.
But the door opened before she touched it, revealing the fearsome figure of Bellatrix Lestrange.
Ginny stopped dead; her mind momentarily blank.
She saw the curse coming toward her, and her instinct made her jump to the side.
"Crucio !" she heard scream, and instantly, an intense pain went through her, making her scream.
Ginny squirmed, trying to resist, as Bellatrix's cruel laughter accompanied her screams.
OOO
The next day, Snape called Draco and Harry again to accompany him to the forest for new training.
The death eater had not forgotten the real reason for the boys' presence in his house, and he did not feel like putting it off any longer.
Draco and Harry walked behind him without much enthusiasm, since they remembered what the last duel had been like, although they also really wanted revenge.
"Hey Potter," Draco whispered. "I don't know about you, but I don't plan to end up on the ground again."
"What do you propose?" Harry asked in the same way. He didn't completely trust Draco, but he was willing to listen to what he wanted to say.
"We could attack him at the same time, I don't think he can stop both spells."
"I expect anything from him," Harry whispered, but then he remembered how they had fought the manticore. "What if one stands behind him? He won't be able to attack us both at the same time."
"I see what you are able to think, Potter," Draco smiled, imagining the scene. "Who does it?"
"That doesn't matter, the first one who manages to escape his attention."
"Enough talk, get into your positions," Snape growled, suspicious of them.
Harry and Draco obeyed, and before they knew it, they found themselves fighting Snape.
The death eater quickly forgot his initial misgivings, seeing that the boys were still as uncoordinated as a few days before, and allowed himself to let his guard down.
However, they were totally aware of what the other was doing, and little by little they were distancing themselves, in order to surround Snape, but since they were fighting in such a pathetic way, he did not realize their true intentions until it was too late.
Draco stood in front of the professor, distracting him with a series of spells and curses that Snape easily parried before knocking him down. Then he turned to Harry... but Harry was gone.
Instinct made Snape turn around to look at Harry, showing his back to Draco.
The blonde took advantage of that opportunity to attack the professor, who couldn't turn around in time, and watched with satisfaction as his spell hit him in the back, moments before Harry made his move.
However, Harry remembered his conversation with Kate, and instead of casting the spell as expected of him, he cast the spell in reverse, so that both spells hit Snape in the back, knocking him into the air.
The wizard hit the ground hard. For a moment, the boys were worried when they saw that Snape was not moving, but the professor had not been seriously injured and finally stood up, boring into them with his gaze.
Harry and Draco instinctively cringed as they imagined the revenge that waited for them, but Snape simply brushed the dust off his robes.
"It's about time," he declared, somewhat satisfied to see that his efforts were finally paying off and that the situation was not as hopeless as he thought. "I see your little brain has managed to learn something, Potter. I may have the misfortune to see you survive the war," he hissed. "But you will never have another opportunity like this again."
Harry and Draco had to fight him for a good part of the day and discovered that the professor was not going to make victory so easy for them again, but they didn't care.
They had already defeated him once, and if they wanted, they could do it again... if they collaborated.
OOO
The Burrow was eerily quiet. Hermione had finally given in to sleep, aided by a brew prepared by Mrs. Weasley, and everyone else was at their respective jobs.
Only Ron sat at the huge kitchen table, taciturn, not knowing what to do. In front of him he had the multiple documents that had been given to them at the hospital, but no matter how much he read them, they still made no sense to him. Under normal conditions, Hermione would have explained the medical jargon to him, since she had more experience with the muggle world, but at that moment, Ron didn't dare bother the young woman for something like that.
The last few days had been very hard for Hermione, and the brief hope she had felt upon seeing her parents had gradually faded as she listened to the doctors' explanations. Ron had had to insist on taking her back to the Burrow to get some rest.
Ron ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it. He didn't understand why Hermione's parents had been taken to this strange hospital, and it baffled him that the doctors knew so much about them. And he had the strangest feeling in the back of his head, like his mind was trying to remember something he had forgotten.
In the corner, the familiar clock made a slight mechanical noise, and Ron glanced at it out of inertia. Then, his heart stopped in his chest, and he jumped up, knocking the chair to the floor.
The handle with Ginny's name on it had moved towards the sign that marked "imminent danger".
OOO
Astrid returned home after a really hard day.
Finally, she had accepted the position as director of Emergencies, and among her new tasks was preparing the department for the attacks that would happen in a few days. She hadn't been able to tell her companions why she thought the death eaters would attack again, but given the panic in the country, her decision didn't seem mistaken.
Taking advantage of her new position, she had ordered the preparation of the new healing potion invented by Snape. She hoped the potion brewing team could have enough ready before the next attack.
She had also planned her shifts so that she could be at the hospital during the days of the attack, and thus be able to organize the rescue and distribution of the wounded without raising suspicions.
In one of her rare free moments, she had gone up to the Unknown Treatment Unit to ask about Hermione's parents. The prognosis was not good. The Grangers had been subjected to the most varied tests, scans and analyses, but the only thing that was clear was that they were in a coma. Their bodies were fine, their minds showed no damage, but the connection between them was non-existent. And nothing they did could wake them up.
Astrid was frustrated that she couldn't do more, but hope was not lost yet. Snape was developing a new potion with unicorn blood, and they both hoped to get great results with it.
The woman locked herself in the laboratory on the upper floor, and instantly her eyes fell on the letter that was resting on the table. Snape had already read it, but he must have been waiting for her to read it too before responding.
The letter had been sent by their friend Charles, who now worked at a pharmaceutical company. It had been he who, unbeknownst to Snape, had assisted Astrid in her daily injections to test the potion's side effects on humans. He had also been the one who had convinced them to try to find muggle compounds to prepare the potions, and be able to sell them outside the magical market.
Snape had agreed because of the challenge it posed, and because the possibility of fame and money for something he had made fueled his pride. Astrid had a more practical approach and thought that a medication capable of accelerating healing would save time and resources in the hospital.
Charles's letter informed them of the latest developments in the patent process for the healing potion, and he was eager to continue work on the new potion. He also attached a list of small experiments they could do on their own before moving forward.
Astrid put the letter aside and realized that Snape had left everything ready to carry out the first test with the new potion. Figuring that the wizard hadn't had time to complete it because he had to train Harry and Draco, Astrid put on her gloves and prepared to do it herself.
Very carefully, she filled a syringe with the new potion, and took a small rat out of a cage. After injecting her with the potion, she leaned back, watching carefully.
She was very curious to see if there were any side effects. The animal stirred in annoyance, but other than that it did nothing strange. Astrid studied the rat for a long time, taking notes in her notebook, but saw nothing that could be interpreted as negative effects.
She knew that the previous potion instantly healed any wound, and that unicorn blood could cure almost any illness, so, very carefully, following Charles' instructions, she proceeded to anesthetize the animal, to draw blood and also study how it healed.
However, Astrid did not have much experience working with animals, and accidentally went too far with the scalpel, perforating an artery. The stream of blood splashed her, and Astrid saw, startled, how the animal bled to death, without being able to remedy it and without the potion acting.
She let out a long string of curses, followed by a sigh of resignation and frustration, wondering how it was possible that the unicorn blood had nullified any healing effect of the previous potion. After all the work it took her to convince Snape of her idea! When he found out, he was going to be unbearable.
Astrid left the laboratory to wash and change her clothes, since they were all stained with blood, and then returned to dispose of the rat's body.
She kept thinking about all the things that could have gone wrong with the potion. But when she entered the laboratory, she saw that the rat was not where she had left it.
Confused, Astrid followed the trail of blood from the carmine-colored puddle on the table with her eyes, and turned when she heard the sound of breaking glass.
Astrid's heart stopped in her chest and the woman had to hold on to a table to keep from falling from the shock. In front of her, the rat looked at her, growling, completely alive.
The wound on its neck had closed.
