Prologue

Prologue

Hermit Hero of the War to become Death Eater Daddy?

by Rita Skeeter, Head Reporter, Daily Prophet

Hogwarts Headmaster Filius Flitwick may have a new Dark Lord or Lady on his hands, if reports are to be believed. You may want to start teaching your children Shield Charms, parents, because the next few years could be crucial.

With Easter just past, the season of fertility and insanity is in full swing. Yes, spring is in the air and, as Tennyson tells us, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love. This year, however, it seems that it’s not just the young men who are overcome by that most intoxicating emotion or its unruly counterpart, lust; the not-so-young are in full spring madness as well, it would seem, and there’s no accounting for taste.

Former Death Eater and long-time Hogwarts Potions Master, Severus Snape, seems to have Summoned some masculine charm in his years of reclusiveness since the Battle of Hogwarts, because he’s Accio-ed none other than Gryffindor Golden Child and Ministry mover-and-shaker Hermione Granger (formerly Weasley) to his side recently. Just two weeks ago, the pair was seen publicly canoodling in the streets of Hogsmeade with the rampant eagerness of couples half (or in his case, a third) of their age, making this roving reporter wonder if the now-defunct Dark Lord included illicit versions of a Permanent Sticking Charm in the Death Eater repertoire of spells. (For an article positing Snape’s potential connection to the underground magical BDSM community, see page 15a. To see pictures from 3/26/12 of the couple exercising their right to public exhibition, see below.)

But as the Muggle crooner said it: “sometimes love just ain’t enough”. It seems that Granger, well known to be a persistent over-achiever, has added “New Mum” to her absurdly long list of accomplishments, a list formerly bulleted with “Divorce Scandal” to keep her in the most prominent headlines. Perhaps it is her desire to cast off pal Potter and take charge of the spotlight that had her seeking out a headline-grabbing main squeeze. The oddly-matched couple – Snape being nineteen years her senior, a renowned misanthrope, and former foe of best friend Harry Potter – was spotted leaving the Maternity Ward of St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies late last night. Playing coy for the camera, Professor Snape simply hid his face behind his hair and moved on, muttering invectives about privacy, but Granger has inherited her House mascot’s temper, threatening various forms of bodily harm upon Daily Prophet photographer Bozoni Puckle and yours truly before her professor paramour dragged her away. Have pregnancy hormones gotten the better of this Order of Merlin recipient’s previously prodigious brain?

More puzzling than the potential psychosis taken on with the influx of estrogen – pregnant women are known to be more susceptible to various forms of stress-induced mania and hormonal fits of depression – is the unlikely match of these high-profile war heroes. Unmasked, as it were, during Harry Potter’s final confrontation of Lord Voldemort on May 1, 1998, Severus Snape was ‘outed’ not just as a double agent within the Death Eaters – having worked to unseat the despot on the orders of barmy ex-Headmaster Albus Dumbledore – but as the long-suffering unrequited love of none other than Lily Potter, Harry’s own mother. Rumor has it that Snape may even have been a part of the reason for targeting the Potters in the first place, prior to their deaths on Halloween night 1981. In sharp contrast, Hermione Granger spent her Hogwarts years gaining a reputation as a relentless do-gooder and all around Know-It-All, despite her forays into the gray area of school rules with her best friends, the infamous Auror Harry Potter and family-joke-shop general manager Ronald Weasley.

So how does a man known for spite and sarcasm with a shadowed past and a nearly pathological life-long obsession for a spurned love end up linked to a seemingly peerless Gryffindor goodie goodie? An anonymous source inside St. Mungo’s intimates that there may have been more than just phenomenal luck at play in Severus Snape’s miraculous return from death’s door after the Battle at Hogwarts.

“There was definitely some dark stuff going on there,” the timid tipster told us. “I mean, let’s face it: he wasn’t exactly squeaky clean – literally or figuratively – before his death-defying recovery, and then he suddenly manages to survive not only a loss of blood that is usually fatal and venom poisoning from a 16-foot serpent? Dark magic is the only source I know of that could do that.” And according to our source, it was none other than eighteen-year-old Hermione Granger that made the call to St. Mungo’s to save her future paramour. Could a Dark ritual have been what saved the Potions professor? Did Hermione Granger’s involvement ensnare her in the professor’s spell?

Or is Granger hiding some past indiscretion by shacking up with Snape? Granger hadn’t shown any previous involvement with the hermit Head of Slytherin House until a few weeks ago. Is Hermione Granger’s impending infant actually Snape’s child, or does the bookish best friend of the Boy-Who-Lived seek a late-start reputation as a wild child? Is Severus Snape just the latest in a line of bad boys that started with Bulgarian bon-bon, Viktor Krum?

Most importantly, what do wizarding hero Harry Potter and former-husband Ronald Weasley think of Granger’s plans for contributing to Hogwarts’ next generation? Me, myself, and I want to know.

A/N – So there you have it, my lovelies! As promised, I have returned with the sequel I mentioned in the final chapter of Bundle of Joy, though admittedly, it took me longer to churn out than I had hoped. I wanted to make sure it was right, though, because I so loved BoJ. The first story had such an overwhelmingly positive response; I hope that you enjoy this bit of lemony fluff that I have in store for you, as a method of checking back in with the characters and answering the question that was posed in the last few paragraphs of BoJ: what, exactly, was that perfect name that Snape had in mind for the baby? You’ll just have to wait and see! ^_^

This is a work-in-progress, but I have most of the chapters plotted out if not completely written, so hopefully things won’t be too long in coming. Remember, reviews feed the muse! And for those of you who are wondering, I won’t leave you high and dry … now that I’m back in the fan-fic saddle, another chapter of Tying Knots will be hot on the heels of this baby. Don’t you worry!

~~ ** LadyTuesday ** ~~