It's More than I Can Keep Inside

A/N - I know it's been a bit longer than I'd hoped since I updated, but RL is VERY busy for me right now, as the college I work for is gearing up for spring. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter ... I have a hunch you will. *smiles cryptically*

Thank you for all of the amazing reviews! Keep them coming; I love to hear your thoughts!

~~ ** Lady Tuesday ** ~~

Chapter Six – It’s More Than I Can Keep Inside

Hermione sat still on the uncomfortable chair, staring into space and largely unaware that a small stream of tears was trickling down from her right eye, racing towards her jawbone. She sniffled once but never wiped at the tears. After a long moment, she looked up at the petite woman talking, shaking her head as she tried to focus on the rest of her sentence.

“—happens to everyone, Hermione,” Euterpe was saying, “not just people going through artificial insemination. In fact, it’s often even less successful the ‘old fashioned way.’”

One small-boned hand descended to Hermione’s shoulder; she barely felt it there until the Healer clasped a bracing grip on her.

“The important thing is to not let it get you down.” Healer Levy’s smile was full of hope. “It’s only the first try, after all. Even natural conception only has, at best, a fifteen-percent chance of success on every try. Chin up, Hermione. We’ll keep trying.”

Hermione nodded, feeling slightly numb. Healer Levy handed her a tissue, which she used to dab at her nose and eyes, then crumpled in her fist. She wasn’t crying because she was sad. She wasn’t even crying because she’d lost hope, though the excuse was sickeningly convenient. When Euterpe had told her that the first round of insemination had not resulted in successful implantation, Hermione was disappointed, of course, but she felt a roiling illness slosh through her stomach as she realized that a part of her had jumped in happiness. No baby meant she could still legally and rightfully talk to Tobias. Another wave of tears swamped her as she felt that spark of hope glimmer in her just from thinking about talking to him again. The chance of a baby was why she had contacted him in the first place; what sort of human was she that so much of her hoped it would fail, just to keep him in her life?

“There, there, sweetheart,” Healer Levy said soothingly, stroking her back as she leaned over with the force of her resumed sobbing. “It’s all right, Hermione. We’ll get it next time. There’ll be a baby soon.”

Her sobs increased. The reassurance from Healer Levy felt like a death sentence.

14/02/12

Just heard from St. Mungo’s. First round of insemination failed. Will try again soon. More news to follow when available.

Severus stared at the painfully short missive on the table in front of him. No word for weeks, and now this: a minute recitation of failure and a weak promise of more “news.” She hadn’t even signed her name. She hadn’t even written his name. Unable to account for the sudden silence that followed the letter containing her physical description, Severus had waited, baffled, as days went by without so much as a scrap of paper from Joy. Days had stretched into weeks with no communication. And now this: a tiny, two-inch piece of paper barely big enough to write that she wasn’t pregnant. Nothing on this paper contained even a hint of the woman he’d come to care for, and he couldn’t help thinking that he’d been a fool to hope ….

The message couldn’t have been clearer: now that she had what she needed from him, the niceties were unnecessary and he’d been demoted to his rightful place as a common gigolo. Fury welled up in his throat, and he found that he could no longer stand to look at her handwriting. Crumpling the tiny note in his large fist, Severus jerked his seat back from the Head Table and strode away. Every eye seemed to follow him, watching in curious fear as Professor Snape stalked away from the breakfast table, his knuckles white and his face a thundercloud.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he growled. His thick-soled black boats seemed to pummel the flagstones as he stomped back to the dungeons.

Hermione stared out the window long after Aida disappeared from sight. The note she had written was just plain awful. She knew that the brusque, cold, and concise wording would be jarring and perhaps even rude to Tobias compared to her usual effusive and bubbly narrative, but she just couldn’t force any other words out of her quill. It had been over a week since she’d visited St. Mungo’s and even that much explanation had felt like an unscalable hurdle. She’d been a wreck since that day. Getting practically nothing done at work, Hermione had spent most of the last two weeks trying to pick up a quill and failing. Fifteen letters to Tobias had been started and then tossed into the fire in her office the two days following the insemination, nine the next week, and not a single damn one ever got written in full, aside from that horrible piece of garbage she’d just sent winging his way. Try as she might, she just couldn’t seem to make herself carry on with normal conversation as if the whole issue of the insemination and pregnancy weren’t the Damocles’s sword dangling over them. Not since the afternoon she’d come home and thought of him as she touched herself – even now, a muted thrum of excitement rang through her at the memory – had she been able to think about him and force herself to act as if nothing out of the ordinary was at risk.

Hermione curled into a ball on her couch. Unable to concentrate even long enough to go through her morning hygienic routine, she’d called off of work. Considering what day it was, she knew she’d never be able to function. And here was the proof of it: for the fourth time in an hour, Hermione dissolved into hiccupping sobs. Her whole life seemed to be unraveling and all because of what she felt for Tobias. And after the letter she’d sent him, he’d probably never want to speak to her again. Hermione reached out a hand, laying her warm palm against the cold window pane.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Tobias,” she whispered brokenly. A fresh wave of sobs plagued her, and she wished stupidly that Crookshanks was still alive so she could cuddle against his warm, familiar bulk. She needed to know that someone loved her.

“So, how do you feel today?”

Hermione looked up at Healer Levy and smiled weakly. The fact that she was smiling at all was an improvement, but she knew she still had far to go. “I’m all right,” she mumbled.

Euterpe Levy raised a slim eyebrow and stared back at her, the petite face blank of expression. “How do you feel today?”

“Have it your way,” Hermione snapped. “I feel absolutely bloody awful. I want to tear out my hair or destroy something or climb the bloody walls. Is that better?”

The Healer’s face softened. “If that’s what you’re really feeling, then yes, it’s better.”

Euterpe heaved a sigh and wheeled her rolling chair closer to the table Hermione sat on. “I know that it’s a hard loss to suffer, losing this chance, but I promise you, we’ll keep trying. It’s not over yet. Far from it.”

Hermione started to say that it wasn’t just the baby that was bothering her, but stopped, nodding. “So what now? Where do we go from here?”

“We try another round when you’re ready, and this time, I’m going to give you a fertility potion. It’s mostly just hormones,” Euterpe replied, in answer to Hermione’s cautious expression, “but also throws in a few things like iron, Vitamins C and E, and L-Arginine. It’s been known to increase fertility in women who had previously failed with in-vitro fertilization.”

Hermione nodded. “And how soon can we try the insemination again?”

Strangely, Healer Levy stood up, pointed her wand at a patch of ceiling that appeared utterly unremarkable, then tapped her chest. When she sat, she scooted so close to Hermione that their legs interlocked and angled herself so that her back was towards the direction of the patch of ceiling. Hermione noticed that when she spoke, she was making gestures and movements that mimicked a physical exam, despite the fact that she wasn’t actually touching her.

“For the safety of the Healers here,” she said, making various hand gestures that Hermione couldn’t help but find distracting, “there is a surveillance spell operating from a terminal in each exam room. Don’t worry, they’re not video feeds,” she said as Hermione’s face melted into panic. “It’s more a monitor of things that indicate physical or emotional distress: ambient temperature in the room, static electricity, body temperature …. What I’m really blocking, though, is their ability to screen my voice. My spell blocks the sound vibrations from leaving a three meter radius from my body. That’s why I came so much closer and also sound as if I’m inside a tin can.”

Hermione smiled and gestured for her to continue.

Euterpe’s face pinched a bit. “All right, we usually don’t do this, but I know that your situation is … different. There’s a battery of potions we have at our disposal that, when taken in proper succession and at the proper time, can speed a woman through an entire month’s menstrual cycle in the span of a week. You take one potion for each day of the menstrual month, so you end up taking them every six hours for a week. It provides you the hormones you need for each day of a menstrual cycle and pushes you through that day in six hours.”

“Wow,” Hermione said, processing the information. “So, this would help my process how?”

“I had you come here today because, according to my charts, you should be starting your menses tomorrow; is that correct?” Hermione nodded. “Which means, if we started you on the potions today, it would speed you through the next two weeks so that—”

“—I’d be ovulating by Friday evening, which means I could have another fertility treatment by the weekend,” Hermione said, with no little bit of awe in her voice.

“Exactly,” Healer Levy said, tapping her nose.

“So why don’t you usually do this process?”

A wry smile topped the Healer’s lips. “Because the days you spend on the potion feel like the absolute worst hell of your life. You’re going through a month’s worth of hormones in a week. Which means that if you would like to go through with this option, I highly suggest that you take the next two days off from work. And spell-guard anything in your house that’s easily broken, torn, stained or emotionally scarred.”

Hermione laughed. And it felt very, very good to laugh. “Let’s do it,” she said.

Healer Levy stood and released the blocking charms on herself and the monitor, striding from the room with a promise to return soon. As soon as the small woman left, Hermione heaved a deep sigh. This was what she wanted. It was. A baby of her own, to love and raise and teach and guide. Someone she could give all the love that was inside her with no outlet. Strangely, she had to keep telling herself that this baby was what she wanted; her heart kept insisting that she wanted something—someone else.

Shortly, Healer Levy returned as promised with a small case of clinking bottles. Without ceremony, she handed Hermione the first in the case, a bottle the size of a cordial glass, full of a gelatinous pink liquid that reminded her of a Muggle indigestion remedy. With a flick of her wrist, Euterpe indicated that the she drink the potion immediately, so Hermione placed the rim to her lips and tilted her head back, allowing the oddly warm sweet liquid to roll across her tongue and down her throat. An ominous rumble escaped her stomach as the potion settled there, but Healer Levy smiled, as if this was exactly what she’d expected.

“Okay, so the potion is on its way to doing its job,” Euterpe said, a laugh leaving her at the sight of Hermione’s scared expression. “Don’t worry, it contains an anti-nauseant, just in case.”

After a long pause, Hermione looked up into her Healer friend’s warm eyes. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” Euterpe smiled, so Hermione continued. “I know, you probably don’t get that question much.”

“More than you’d think,” she said enigmatically. She heaved a deep sigh. “I can’t tell you whether it’s the right thing, Hermione; I can only say that you’re going about this the best way you know how. I can’t fault you for that.”

Hermione nodded, glad for the honest answer, even if it was slightly unfulfilling.

“I can tell you one thing,” she said with a cryptic smile. She was quiet for a long moment as she handed Hermione the case of potions.

“Yes?” Hermione prompted, desperate to hear the end of her thought.

Euterpe gazed at her with a soft and yet assessing look. “You chose the right man. He’s a good man.”

Hermione nodded, smiling and blushing just a bit. “Yes, I got quite lucky.”

“You have no idea just how right you are.”

Stunned, Hermione gaped at her.

“He’s a good man,” the petite witch repeated. “And he’ll make a wonderful father.”

“Yes, I think he—” Hermione started. When she realized what had Euterpe had said and what she so nearly answered, she screeched to a halt, a hand flying up to her open lips.

Euterpe Levy merely favored her with a beaming smile and closed the door behind her before Hermione had the chance to say anything else.

“For the last time, Mr. Potter, go away.”

The wooden stool groaned until the weight of a sudden, forceful swivel that brought Severus back to face the polished surface of the bar. For the last four hours, at least, he’d been trying to drink himself blind, but these damn young pups kept getting in the way. It was bad enough that Seamus Finnegan was now the damn barkeep here and, as such, had to witness his haggard and embarrassing state, but now Harry Bloody Potter was the latest in the line of people sent to keep him quiet and chivvy him home.

“I can’t do that, Professor,” Harry said, his voice starting to show signs of irritation. “I need to do my job.” When he earned a steely glare from the thoroughly inebriated former Headmaster, Harry added quietly, “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“I just want to finish a damn drink in peace,” he muttered, slapping his open palm against the bar next to a mostly empty pint glass.

Upon lifting his palm, a silver Sickle warm from his pocket graced the counter, and Seamus scowled but picked it up and hesitantly made to refill his glass. Though Severus couldn’t see the gesture outright, he saw Potter’s reflection in the window behind the bar as it offered Finnegan a stern glance and a minor shake of his head. The young barkeep had the nerve to pause and then say, “Perhaps I could tempt you into accepting a cup of coffee, sir? Or perhaps some Butterbeer?”

Severus growled, low in his throat. “Don’t try to ‘handle’ me, Finnegan. Just because I’m not your professor anymore doesn’t mean I couldn’t teach you a few things.”

“At this point, Professor, you’d be lucky to teach him your full name,” Potter spat, finally showing his frustration.

Severus stood up now, trying to rain down his imperious and intimidating presence; the effect was sadly diminished by the wavers his body made as it reassessed his balance every few seconds. Harry wasn’t the least bit intimidated, anyhow; as Head of the Auror Department, he’d seen far scarier things than an angry drunk, even if that drunk did happen to be a man who used to terrify him out of his trainers.

“Now listen here, Potter,” Severus tried to say, but before he’d uttered the second syllable, the holly wand was jammed unceremoniously into his chest.

“Word has it, Professor,” Harry snapped, “that I’m the fifth Auror tonight to try to get you to preserve your dignity and head back to Hogwarts for the rest of the evening. I’m also damn well going to be the last.”

Severus tried to take a threatening step forward, but the point of Potter’s wand just set him off balance, and he tumbled backwards onto the bar, sending the stool clattering to the floor.

“Now,” Harry said calmly, “I’m going to enlighten you as to what’s going to happen right now. First, you’re going to pick up that stool and set it right. Secondly, you’re going to apologize to Seamus for causing such a ruckus here tonight, and you’re going to pay him quite a bit extra for the three waitresses you insulted, fourteen patrons you’ve scared away, the Auror in the back room with a bloody nose, and the one in St. Mungo’s with the antennae on his unmentionables.” Severus started to object, but the wand poked hard into the hollow of his throat this time.

“Next,” Harry said sternly, “you’re going to go into that bathroom and throw some cold water on your face to help spruce yourself up a tad, because there’s no way I’m taking you back to that school while you’re behaving like a rebellious teenager and looking like something that was stuck to the floor.”

Severus’s eyes nearly turned red with indignance. “How dare you—!” He barely remembered drawing his own wand, but suddenly, there it was in front of the nosepiece of Harry’s glasses.

“Don’t make me hex you, Severus,” Harry said, his voice a low, cold parallel of his own. “I don’t want to, but I won’t hesitate if you give me a reason.”

The green eyes watching him steadily hadn’t changed much in thirteen years. They held a great deal more wisdom now, more sadness, but essentially they were still the same. Clear and green and intense, just like Lily’s had been.

“Lily,” Severus whispered, and the word itself seemed to cause him to crumple. He hadn’t even thought about her since he’d realized his feelings for Joy. Now, he couldn’t help the comparisons that washed over him, and the weight of it bent him. For the first time in thirteen years, he felt like he might snap.

Without another word, Snape shuffled away towards the loo at the back, leaving a stunned Harry, relieved Seamus, and thoroughly baffled patronage of the Hog’s Head staring after him. Wordlessly, Harry moved to the overturned stool, righted it, and plopped down with a heavy sigh. Catching Seamus’s eye, he tapped the rim of Snape’s pint glass and Seamus filled it without a word. Gulping down the room-temperature lager without thought of his reasonably low tolerance for alcohol, Harry rolled his shoulders and tried not to lose the emotional control that years of work as an Auror had given him. He felt so very old tonight. Thirty-one certainly wasn’t ancient, but Harry’d seen more than his fair share of disgrace, ugliness, and unhappiness, both in his youth and in his work as an adult. He thanked God every day for Ginny and Ron and Hermione, convinced that they were the only things that had ever kept him young and grounded and happy. But seeing Snape tonight, so angry and belligerent and so thoroughly, grotesquely drunk … it was more than just upsetting or aging; it hurt him. It hurt him to see a man who had willingly suffered so much destroying himself so keenly. Harry almost felt embarrassed at the display, and even more so that he had to be the one to confront him. In retrospect, though, better him than someone who wouldn’t have been have so understanding and probably would have taken him away in a Body-Bind to burn off the alcohol in a holding cell. Harry polished off the rest of the beer and stood, stretching his aching limbs.

More disturbing was the fact that this behavior from Snape was totally uncharacteristic. Even in the days before the war, he’d always been ruthlessly controlled, whip-lash cruel and endlessly harsh, but never reckless. The sight of the man who’d saved his life numerous times drowning in drink and misery made him want to vomit.

“So what do you suppose his problem is?” Seamus asked on a low whisper, leaning over the bar as he wiped glasses.

Harry sighed. “I was sort of hoping you’d tell me.”

Seamus’s face puckered thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, I’ve seen this sort of behavior a million times, Harry, and if it were anyone but Severus Snape, I’d tell you I knew exactly what it was.”

Looking up at a sudden noise, Harry and Seamus watched as Severus strode forth from the door to the loos, scrubbing at his wet face with his thin fingers and looking as if he’d aged at least ten years in the last few hours.

“He’s not so very different from anyone else, Seamus,” Harry said quietly. Quickly, on a hushed voice, Harry asked, “So what do you think it is that’s got him acting this way?”

Seamus straightened and favored Harry with a rueful if not somewhat sad smile. “What is it always, when a bloke drinks himself a fool? Especially on Valentine’s Day.”

Harry couldn’t help the shock on his face as Snape strode up to him. The looming professor’s face was defiant and pinched in anger, but the eyes had glazed over. Strangely, he didn’t shrug off Harry’s grip as one hand curled around Snape’s upper arm to lead him out of the pub with a quiet, “Come on, Professor; let’s get you home.”

Harry threw one final look to Seamus, who shrugged and nodded. Harry couldn’t help but think Seamus was right, however odd it seemed: Severus Snape was in love.

“So do you want to tell me who she is?”

“Go to hell.”

Even Harry was surprised when a laugh slipped out from between his lips. “I guess that’s a no.”

“That’s a ‘mind your own damn business,’ actually,” Severus snapped.

The longer he walked, the more he regained his balance, but the ground still chased out from under him every now and then. As another one of those attacks of vertigo came upon him, he felt the ground rushing upwards until Potter threw his arms around Severus’s back to keep him from tumbling face first into the gravel walkway. Harry had decided that it was in Snape’s best interest to keep him walking rather than using a spell to transport him, thinking that the cold air and stretch of time would help sober him up; what he hadn’t counted on was the sheer magnitude of his drunkenness meant that Harry had become a human crutch.

“Honestly, Professor, it might do you some good to talk about it,” Harry said. “And besides, it’s not as if you’re fooling anyone. Only a woman would have someone like you making such a bloody arse of himself.”

Snape scowled down at the young man propping him up. “You’re not doing much to garner any confidences, Mr. Potter.”

“Well, you’re not exactly doing a ton to garner my sympathy, Professor,” Harry said with a slick smirk.

After a moment of silence, Harry tried again. “Look, Professor, after the dust from the battle settled and we found out you were still alive, I tried the best I could to make amends and to instill some sort of peace between us. You accepted, and you told me that all you wanted was to be left alone so you could lead a quiet life. We honored that. Hermione, Ron, and I only contacted you long enough to say a respectful, polite thank you, and then we left you the hell alone to continue terrorizing firsties for the better part of twelve years.

“For whatever reason, Fate has shoved us back into the same space on a night where you are obviously in need of one hell of an understanding ear. Whether you want to take advantage of it or not is your choice, but I try not to ignore what seems like providence when it’s pushing so hard. If you want to tell me what’s going on, I’ll listen; if not, I’ll drop you off at Hogwarts, and we can meet again in another seven or eight years when my oldest son is expelled from your Potions class for doing something stupid.”

Completely unexpectedly, like a rolling potion, a hearty laugh bubbled out of Severus’s throat. Swaying a bit from the drink, Severus leaned harder onto Harry’s throat and chuckled until his eyes watered. After getting over the initial shock of hearing Severus Snape laugh, Harry joined in, his higher, tenor voice carrying into the trees over Snape’s low baritone. Snape motioned for Harry to stop and let him sit, so after conjuring a bench in the snow and easing the taller and considerably heavier professor to its seat, Harry perched at the other end, regarding him curiously.

For a moment, neither man said a word, just listened to the various sounds of night creatures in the foliage around them. Snape sighed heavily, a long, gruff exhalation of breath.

“She’s gotten bored with me, I think,” Snape said suddenly, as if this statement were the middle of a conversation rather than the beginning of one.

“Bored?” Harry asked. He wanted desperately to ask whom he meant, but knew that asking too much too soon would scare him off.

Snape nodded. “I believe so. Though I can’t understand how it happened. Or even when. Our correspondences have always been pleasant. More than pleasant,” he admitted, a light blush painting his sallow cheeks. He stared off into the forest, away from Harry’s eyes. “Her letters have been … a light to me. Here,” he pressed a hand to his heart. “Incandescent. She burns so brightly that I feel lit just knowing her.”

Harry held his breath, fearful that even the sound of exhalation would break the mood. Or the man.

“It seems like more than just a few months that we’ve been writing; just a collection of weeks since I read that stupid article, but I know her better than anyone I’ve ever known before. And she knows me deeper than anyone ever has. Even Lily.” This statement brought Snape’s gaze back to Harry. “Lily couldn’t see past this.” He tugged up his shirtsleeve to show the Dark Mark, still branding his skin, though faded with age.

“Even before I was a Death Eater,” Snape said, “Lily couldn’t see past where I was headed, the choices she was convinced I would make. So I had no choice but to make them. Without her with me, what choice did I have? Do you see?”

Harry nodded, but he wasn’t sure he did understand.

“With Joy, though, I could start all over again. Clean parchment, new quill. I wasn’t the exacting Potions master or the feared Professor or the cold and calculating Death Eater. Just me: the man inside the branded skin.” His face was smooth in calmness for a moment before his heavy brows drew together. “But it’s not enough. Tobias isn’t enough. She only wanted him for what he could give her, and now she’s gone. Or, at least, she will be soon enough.”

Harry let the silence ring for a long while as he collected his thoughts. “You know, Professor,” he said slowly, “if she’s as wonderful as you say she is, I doubt she’d let it come to that. If she’s that type of person, she would only care about the man you are, not what you can give her. She’d love you for what you make her.”

Severus squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the horrifying reality of tears. “Then I suppose that she isn’t the woman I thought her to be.”

“No!” Harry said, grabbing Snape’s shoulders and turning him to look Harry in the eye. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant that she probably thinks a lot more of you than you believe she does; she’s probably just uncertain of what you think of her. Have you told her how you feel?”

Harry’s stomach lurched when a tear slid from beneath the thin black lashes and chased away down Snape’s bony face. The stalwart professor shook his head.

“She needs to know,” Harry said. “Professor, she needs to know. She’s probably just waiting for you to say so.”

“I can’t do that,” Snape said, turning away again.

“Why not?”

Snape hitched to his feet and swiped a scratchy sleeve across his eyes. “Because she’s gone now. It’s too late.”

“That’s not true,” Harry said. He chased after his former professor as the long-legged strides took them back towards Hogwarts. “You love her, don’t you?”

Snape didn’t speak, but the determination on his face as he walked spoke volumes.

“Then it’s never too late,” Harry said. “It can’t be.”

When Snape didn’t answer, Harry grabbed his arm to hold him back. A rueful smirk appeared on the hawk-like face. “Spoken like a true Gryffindor,” he said, pulling his arm free of Harry’s grip. “I’m not a Gryffindor, Mr. Potter.”

He didn’t turn around as he strode through the gates. Eventually, Harry heard him call over his shoulder.

“If you ever speak of this evening to anyone, the former Miss Weasley will have to bury you in a hundred different locations. One for each piece.”

Harry found himself laughing as he walked a few feet from the gate and Apparated home to the former Miss Weasley.

Spring swept in early that year. Severus couldn’t help thinking that it was quite warm for mid-March. He felt marginally cheered by the fact that he no longer needed to wear the layer of wool pants beneath his robes down in the dungeons and that the air was balmy to the point that his gloves proved unnecessary at the last Quidditch match. Greenery was bursting to life outside the castle, and inside, the yearly frenzy of hormones, snogging, and pairing off into couples was just beginning to show its head. The melting snow seemed to be uncovering layers of romance. It made he want to vomit. And throw things.

Another ten-word missive had arrived from Joy three weeks ago, explaining that the second round of insemination (surprise!) had failed. He’d been in a towering temper for nearly a fortnight, rendering even teachers unsafe from his ire. Eventually, Minerva had pulled him aside and very calmly explained that he was not allowed to give Hagrid detention for having bad taste in wine. She had then proceeded to quite impertinently suggest that he needed a vacation. Though he’d roared at her to nose out, he’d spent the last six days quite comfortably holed up in his dungeon chambers, alternately cursing the world and hiding from it between the pages of Rondat’s anthologies. And whenever the anthologies started to remind him of Joy (every hour or so), he’d have a tumbler of Firewhiskey and returned to cursing the world. He felt like his old self again.

And that was the worst part of the whole situation.

Potter had invited him over for dinner no less than twelve times in the last month, receiving increasingly terse decline notes in response. The most recent – sent just this morning – reminded Potter that he’d ‘been quite satisfied with the past decade’s agreement to tactfully ignore each other’s existences’ and wouldn’t he be kind enough to bugger the hell off. Potter had simply replied with a note saying, “I’ll try again next week.”

Severus grumbled loudly, causing a few nearby second-years to jump anxiously in their seats. Minerva scowled at him from the other side of the Great Hall, casting a quick eye over all the students currently engaged with silent work for Homework Club, and then strode swiftly to where he stood.

“For Merlin’s sake, Severus,” she spat in a harsh whisper. “If you can’t be polite enough to be silent in your emotional musings, then taking your moody, reclusive bum back to the dungeons to stew!”

Taking her at her word, Snape favored the Headmistress with an icy glare before turning on his heel and heading back to his chambers. Most of the walk there was a blur of annoyance and tension, but when he opened his chamber door, he started violently. Perched on the back of his desk chair was an owl, though not the usual owl, Radames, that brought his mail from Hogsmeade. This bird was sleek and dark and had the regal bearing of a Queen who knew that she would be instantly admired and praised for her beauty. She – he was strangely certain it was a she – tilted her head and regarded him intently as he crossed the room to her. Clutched in one set of talons was what must be a letter, though the scroll was thick enough to be an issue of the Prophet.

“Hello there,” Severus said tentatively as he approached the chair. “You’re someone new. You couldn’t have just left this on the desk?”

She clicked her beak and hopped the short distance to his desk, dropping the post on his blotter. Bending over, she tapped it several times with her beak.

“Thank you,” he said, amused and intrigued by the bird’s nearly prescient attitude.

Grabbing an owl treat from a jar on the sill, he tossed it onto the desk next to her. No sense taking the chance that she’d bite him if he came any closer. Strangely, the bird ignored the treat, and rather than flying off now that her duty was complete, she bent again to tap the scroll with her beak, this time insistently enough to put a few small pock marks in the parchment.

“Tenacious, aren’t you?” he chortled. “It must be important then?”

Her feathers ruffled and she hopped side to side as he sat down and picked up the tightly furled parchment.

“All right, then,” he said, and reached into his desk drawer for a pair of silver-framed reading glasses. “Let me see …”

The glasses slid from his hand and clattered to the floor when he turned the scroll and saw the writing on the outside.

Mr. Tobias Reynard

That was all. No box number in Hogsmeade. Just the name. And even if the alias hadn’t told him immediately who the sender was, the handwriting would have, even through the strange splotches of water damage throughout his name. Studying her writing for a moment, barely believing that she’d actually written him a good length letter again, Severus was struck with a sudden realization of what he saw.

“You’re her owl, aren’t you? She didn’t bother going through Hogsmeade; she wanted you to bring it straight to me, didn’t she?”

This time, the sleek ebony owl didn’t bother to tap the parchment: She hopped right up onto Severus’s arm and pecked hard at his hand. Swearing profusely, Severus shook her off rather more roughly than was good manners, he was sure.

“All right, you mangy beast! I’ll read the bloody thing.”

When Severus unfurled the letter, its parchment dropped down the desk, over his lap and far away across the floor. With a horrible sense of foreboding, he began to read the mammoth length of parchment dappled with what he could only assume was water. Or tears.

*****

Monday, March the 19th, 2012

Dear Tobias,

I’m not so sure I even have the right to say that to you anymore. How you must hate me. After months of lovely letters – letters that have lit every day I have received them – I have left you with practically nothing but a handful of words and no respect for the dear, dear friendship we have built between us. I have used you so abominably these last few weeks, and the only excuse I have is that I didn’t know what to say. How angry you must be with me. Even if you never speak to me again …well, write to me, I mean of course … I hope you will at least find it in your heart to read this letter, as I hope to explain at least some part of what I have felt and what I have done.

I’m so afraid, Tobias. Everything about our situation now frightens me. I’ve waited until I’m over thirty to even try to get pregnant and in such a situation …. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to explain to you everything that makes my situation what it is. No more concealment, no more lies. You deserve that much.

I’m divorced. My ex-husband and I met as children on the train to Hogwarts before our first year. For the first few years of school, we were fast friends, together with another young man we all met very early on. We were inseparable, the three of us, and after a few years of being ‘one of the guys,’ I began to fancy myself in love with my future husband. He being of a very different constitution and manner than I, we fought often, but in what all who knew us considered to be a good-natured sort of way. I should have known it for what it was. As seventh years, we had a very unique and stressful position in the final battle with Lord Voldemort, and when everything was all over and we all had the option of just living for the first time ever, we were all overcome with giddy excitement and drunk on freedom. Our marriage didn’t take very long to dissolve. I’m not sure I could stand to go into all the details of the degeneration of the situation now – I find myself far too distraught – but if you decide to continue our friendship, merely ask and I will give you any detail you seek. Suffice it to say, my ex-husband ended up remarried and up to his neck in children and I ended up a social pariah with a talent for knitting and a very old half-Kneazle for company.

The seven and a half years since my divorce haven’t been unhappy, per se, simply quiet and somewhat lonely. I’ve picked up and perfected numerous hobbies and gone out on a handful of dates, but not a damn thing has actually fulfilled me in the way I’d hoped my life would be at this point. That’s when I posted the advert. I figured, why wait for a man who may not ever come? Why should I sacrifice the dream of having a child simply because my husband grew out of me?

And then came you. Everything I was looking for, and yet, at the same time, nothing I asked for. Strange, that. What I wanted was a baby with no strings attached and what I got was an amazing, spell-binding (forgive the pun), totally unexpected friendship with a man more complex and intriguing than I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting before. Even though we’ve never really met. And I just got carried away on what your correspondences have done for me. I feel alive again. More alive than I have since that dizzy-drunk year after the war; only this time, I have the wisdom and maturity to see my path ahead. And for a long time now, it’s seemed like the original idea of the baby has barely even mattered. Which terrifies me, Tobias.

I do want a baby. I do. So much. But I don’t just want a baby. I want your baby. Perhaps I’m laying my hand out too far, showing too much, revealing too much, but you deserve to know the truth. I want to have your child. And now that I know exactly what I want, it seems to be the one thing that Fate won’t let me have.

Two rounds of insemination have failed and that after Healer Levy gave me a whole slew of potions basically designed to ensure conception. And to add insult to injury, she even said that your sperm count was above average, especially for someone your age. So it must be me. My body is failing me, somehow. And failing you, too. What if it never works? What if I can never have a baby? The thought scares me more than I want to acknowledge.

I just didn’t know how to tell you all this. I’m terrified and confused and sad … and yet, every time I think of you, I can’t stop myself from smiling. I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to put it all down on paper, and I was terribly afraid that if I did, I’d lose you all together. I didn’t think I was strong enough to stand it.

And yet, now I feel like that’s what’s happened. I’ve lost you. And it’s all my own damn fault. For being too cautious, for not telling you how I’ve felt all this time … I feel like this is what I deserve for treating you so awfully.

I hope you can forgive me. And even if you can’t, I hope you can accept this explanation and a heartfelt apology for what you’ve gone through.

Yours always,

Joy

*****

Monday, 19 March

Joy,

I barely know where to begin. I suppose the best place to start would be that which is foremost in my mind, so thence I go:

You owe me no apology, Madam. I admit, I was both confused and angered by your silence of late, but I am and always have been of a rather resentful and implacable nature; you know this. After reading your letter, I can only feel guilty for being content in my anger and confusion. True, you did not set pen to paper, but neither did I. I was content to merely marinate in my resentment and anger, convinced that you had decided yourself done with me. Bored, even.

Further than that, I have no words to express my sorrow for your heartache. I have come to feel for you a closeness the likes of which I have not known for many, many years. Perhaps ever. If you are brave enough to show your hand, what sort of gentleman would I be to hold mine close to the vest? By the way, I can nearly hear your laughter at my referring to myself as a gentleman. It is highly offensive and I will scold you for it later. As I was saying, I am profoundly sorry for your heartache; I don’t believe I’ve ever known anyone less deserving of sorrow. Your former husband is a fool of the most lamentable kind, and I hope, from this day forward, that you never spend another moment feeling the loss of his company.

But let me clear the record on one point:

Your body is NOT failing you. A woman of any age who is in respectable health has only a ten-percent chance, fifteen at best, of conceiving. Two failed attempts at conception are not a death knell for your reproductive chances. I have to wonder, though … since you mentioned Fate, perhaps I’m not out of line to mention …

Perhaps it is the situation that is precipitating the failure …? You said that you wanted to have my child. (And believe me, I’m more flattered than words can say, and a thousand other emotions occur to me that barely be named.) Perhaps the problem is that, in our current arrangement, it doesn’t feel like my child …? While at the outset, and perhaps with any other man, the clinical and detached method of conception would have worked, but considering the change in our situation and the growth of our … whatever you want to call this thing between us, perhaps it is that somewhere inside, your body has decided that it is not personal enough. That it wouldn’t be my child, that it would only be yours. I know that someday everything grounded and logical in me will gasp in horror at that mess of emotional rot that I’ve just spouted, but at the moment, I can’t be bothered to care. And, more than that, I actually believe it.

So, with a leap of blind faith and complete terror, I propose the following: I believe we should meet, face to face, and try to conceive this baby together.

Yours,

Tobias

If Hermione had believed that the fear she’d felt writing the last letter to Tobias was the greatest she’d felt since battle, she was most unfortunately deceiving herself. As she read Tobias’s response, her hands shook so badly she could barely hold the parchment covered in his spiky scrawl. When she swiped them across her sweaty forehead, she nearly believed she would faint. A thousand emotions and fears and anxieties darted through her mind: had he really forgiven her? Was he earnest in his assessment of their situation? Had he admitted that he loved her, subtly, in those lines about their friendship?

Could she really agree to have sex with someone she’d never actually met? More than that … could she really bring herself to meet him in person, exposing her feelings to the open air where he’d be there to face him?

When she thought of what she’d be risking to meet him and compared it to what she’d lose if she didn’t, only four words were enough to pen her answer, so that’s all she wrote.

Where should we meet?