April Fool

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64. APRIL FOOL

He levitated his wand, lit by the gentlest of Lumos spells, over them as he watched her sleep.

Now that her nausea had finally passed, her face was beginning to fill out again. Her eyelashes cast deep shadows on her cheekbones, and he longed to trace the edge of her jaw with his fingers, to stroke her hair away and expose her ear….

Her hair.

How long had it been since he'd fantasised about running his fingers through strands of silky red hair? How long since emerald eyes had caused his jaw to tighten, his hands to clench?

Instead, his fingers itched to dig into curls that snagged and tangled and captured him, and he found himself melting at the sight of eyes the colour of tea.

She glowed golden in the wand-light, glowed with warmth and with light and with all that was holy in his world. How he longed to pull the covers down to glory in the view of her body. The swelling of her stomach had done nothing to dampen his desires, though he was stricken anew with guilt when he imagined what was ahead of her.

She rolled over and gave him a sleepy smile.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"Hmmm…?" Her eyes fluttered closed; she was asleep again.

But her shoulder and breast were exposed, her nipple tight in the cold air.

Fucking hell.

He couldn't stop himself. He eased down the bed until his lips were level with her nipple and—with the tip of his tongue—tasted it.

Her soft sigh went straight to his cock.

He leaned closer. This time he stroked her with the flat of his tongue.

Another sigh, this time with a restless stir of her body, and he had to stifle his own groan.

With a slight gesture he raised the covers and then sent them into an accordion fold at her feet.

Even in the dim golden light, he could see the gooseflesh form on her skin.

He wanted to hear her moan.

He wanted to taste her.

He wanted to give her honey-thick, ecstasy-drenched dreams.

One more taste of her sweet nipple, this time with a gentle tug of suction…

She stretched onto her back with a low whimper.

And he slid down her body, pressing a wet kiss against the navel that was stretched tight across her abdomen, then lower, the roundness of her belly soft and tight and smooth against his rough cheek. He nuzzled it softly and was dragging further down toward the nest of curls, tight and black in the low light, when he felt it.

A thump against his nose.

He froze.

Again, this time harder.

His heart felt tight and hard, his breath trapped in his chest. For the first time, he imagined something real and living inside her. Growing, moving. A foetus with arms and legs and a head, not just an image but also an infant made of flesh and blood and bone.

A being.

Not "baby" as a concept, but "baby" as reality.

She moaned in her sleep, but in her belly—

A pulse of magic hit him with an almost-sting of heat.

He pulled back and forced air into his lungs.

A son.

A Snape son.

He fumbled for the covers, pulled them up and tucked them under her chin and, heart pounding, watched her nestle back into sleep.

XX

She woke to darkness and an empty bed and felt the clutch at her heart. Another of his nightmares? When would they end?

And where was he? They didn't usually send him out of bed. They sent him into her arms.

She sat up abruptly, suddenly afraid.

He sprawled in the chintz chair, facing a cold fireplace.

With a bottle of Firewhisky dangling from one hand.

"Professor?"

She didn't take time to grab her robe, but ran shivering across the cold floor to send the fire blazing with a wave of her hand. She dropped down on her knees in front of him. His face was all harsh angles of shadow and he reeked of alcohol. "Professor," she repeated and sought his eyes with hers. "Please… tell me how to help you. Tell me what they're about so I can—"

"It's not a fucking nightmare," he snarled, staring past her into the flames.

She stopped her hand halfway to his cheek as he took a long draw of whisky straight from the bottle. He glared at her stomach. "How long has the little beast been battering you from within?"

She placed a hand on her abdomen. "You felt it?"

He jerked his gaze away from her and into the fire again, took a draw of whisky again.

"I told you it's moving now," she said, confused and careful.

"You said… fluttering." It was more sneered than spoken.

"It started out that way…." She watched the bottle dangle precariously from his fingers and finally reached for it. "I'm going to take this now." Miraculously, he allowed her to. She re-corked it and put it out of his reach.

"You also didn't tell me he was manifesting magic," he snapped.

She puzzled that out. "Is that what it is? Sometimes I feel something stronger than usual, but it's all mixed up with what I feel for you, and—are you sure?"

"I recognise magic when I feel it." He reached for the bottle that was no longer there, and she shifted so that he wouldn't see it behind her. His hand fell back to his side. "You didn't tell me he was sentient, that he was aware."

"Severus, I don't know what you're talking about." A shiver rippled through her body and her teeth started chattering, but it was from fear as much as the cold.

He rose to his feet, his movement as fluid as if he weren't already half-inebriated. He snatched the floral cover from the bed and wrapped it around her, his movements more sharp than affectionate, and she felt and saw him drawing further into himself, into whatever rage and terror consumed him.

"Severus," she said, and this time she did reach for his face, ran her fingers through his hair in as soothing a fashion as possible. "Professor."

His eyes were flat and black as he drew away from her. "Your son," he said, his voice sheer sinister sibilance, "senses me… and he despises me."

It escaped before she could stop it, though even as it happened she knew it shouldn't, knew she shouldn't. Laughter. Incredulous laughter. "You're jesting. You're—you're drunk!"

He hissed his anger, drawing back and decidedly not jesting and, she belatedly noticed, not truly drunk.

"You can't be serious," she insisted. "Its internal organs aren't even fully formed. It's just—"

"A little beast that will emerge fit for nothing but pissing, shitting and squalling, yes, I realise that—"

"Of course that’s all it will be fit for! I can't imagine that babies do much more."

"He despises me and did his feeble best to push me away from you. You, my dear wife," he said, the power of his voice overriding her protests, "must realise the nature of Snape fathers and sons."

"Not so feeble," she said, and turned away, overwhelmed with helplessness and vexation and—and even a little fear. "Evidently not so feeble at all. You left me alone in our bed, did you not?" With a toss of her head she whisked into the bathroom before he could say more, before he could stop her. She cast a quick Silencing Charm so he wouldn't hear her tears of frustration as she sank against the wall.

And her sense of helplessness grew as he followed her into the dark room. The candles sparked into light. She tried to rub her tears away, but he grabbed her before she could move her hands, and helplessly she let the charm fall.

"Don't do this," he said urgently. "Don't hide from me. Not your sickness and not your pain."

"Your emotions are overwhelming me until I don't know where yours end and mine begin," she snapped back. "I need privacy to deal with it all. Can't you at least give me that?"

His expression was stricken. "I don't want you alone with your emotions. Not when I know what it leads to, the kind of despair and—and—"

"And idiocy, like deciding your baby, who isn't even fully formed yet, despises you?" But her words were gentle as she allowed him to draw her close.

He turned his forearm so that the Dark Mark was visible. "Or worse," he said. "There are worse idiocies that spring from being alone with despair."

Oh, Professor.

Her frustration and impatience finally lost out to her anguish as she felt herself weeping within.

"Then neither of us must be alone with our dark emotions," she said, knowing that she must find a better place to hide to lick her wounds when the situation called for it, as it surely must. But she stroked his hair and nestled her cheek against his neck. "Neither of us, and you must promise me that."

And while he didn't promise, he did lift her in his arms and carry her back to their bed, their wonderful bed. When he released her into the pillows and slid his arms from beneath her, she grabbed his hand and refused to allow him to pull away. "I feel so much for you… of you," she said. "And you expect me to feel a tiny infant's magic?" She pulled his hand to her left breast and held it there. "Feel that?" She watched him stare down at his hand, at her smaller one holding it against her flesh. His fingertips stroked lightly and she caught her breath. "You expect me to know how much of my glow could be from something else, when we share our very souls?"

Again, he started to pull away.

Again, she held him and refused to let him go. "You want to know what I'm feeling? You want to know what your baby is doing to me?" She slid his hand lower down her body, and when it touched the top of her swollen belly he tried to jerk it away. "No," she ordered, "this is me. This is my skin, my body, and—" She sighed. "—it itches."

"Itches?" he repeated dumbly.

"Itches! Don't you feel how tight it's stretched?"

He placed his hand on her belly again. She braced herself, waiting for the pushing, the kicking, and the sense that the little creature was pushing at her in all directions at once, and braced herself for Severus's reaction.

"Accio Stellaria." He caught the pot of unguent as it sailed toward him, and opened it with one deft hand. He dipped it with his fingers and sniffed, then satisfied, dropped a finger-scoop of the cream onto her stomach.

"Severus!" she shrieked, as the cold mess hit her with a splat.

He was smirking. The—the beast was smirking.

She started to roll away from him, but this time he held her still, and when his fingers began their slow circling of her belly, she simply sank back with a sigh of relief. He hummed a soft chant under his breath and everywhere he touched, she felt blissful relief.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked between chants. "About the kicking, and the itching, and—what else aren't you telling me?"

"Not very much. Just the least bit of indigestion," she admitted, gasping as his fingers soothed away the irritation.

"And you didn't tell me, why?" More circling, gentle and ever widening as he worked his way around and around her belly, his movements languid, lazy.

"Because… because it's not really your fault, and you feel guilty enough already," she sighed. She almost moaned as his hand slid under her to her back, and his strong fingers found the ache there. "No more guilt," she managed to say.

"This means you—"

"It's still your baby," she said in a rush, hiding her smile. "Your responsibility."

"Of course." He eased her onto her side and now it was her entire back that felt the benefit of knuckles and palms and thumbs gliding, pressing, probing.

And the baby remained blessedly still.

And she suddenly knew.

"Severus," she said, and rolled to face him. "He wasn't pushing you away."

He stilled, wary, and she felt him bracing to pull away.

She stroked the bridge of his nose. "He was bored. He was trying to get you to—"

"Bored? Are you mad?"

"What? He can despise you, but he can't be bored?" She gave him her most Snapish glare. "He wanted you to talk to him, to read to him. He's always calm when you read. You woke up. He felt you. He was demanding—yes, demanding, because he is your son, heaven help me—that you play with him. That you read to him. That you do something to relieve his boredom because at this time of night he's always trying to get me to move around. He just decided to work on you for a change."

"Insane."

"Severus…" She took his hand and sucked the tip of his finger into her mouth. She gave it a voluptuous nibble. And she kissed him, and there was no more talking, and no more thinking, and if the baby moved, she didn't know, because how could she tell, when she was in her professor's arms?

Later as she lay in his arms with his heart beating against her ear, she pressed a kiss onto his warm skin and said, "Today I would like to go see Mrs Weasley…."

He didn't answer.

He was asleep.

XX

The last time he'd been so aware of a woman's pregnant body, she had worn a full robe of diaphanous layers of coppery gauze and linen that floated on the breeze around her and occasionally whipped against her to reveal the full swell of her abdomen.

He had never touched her. He had only watched from afar as she'd laughed and walked down Diagon Alley, hand in hand with his enemy.

And here he stood, almost two decades later, with a pregnant witch beside him in a tight knit shirt that hid nothing, not even the nip of a navel that still remained, despite her body's best efforts to stretch it tight. He fretted that her low-rise jeans would slip right down her arse and to the ground, despite her assurances that they couldn't and was relieved that his green robes, still transformed to fit her, draped from her shoulders and provided at least a modicum of coverage.

But as for touching her—standing there outside the Hogwarts gate, she curled herself against his body and sighed with such trust and contentment, he closed his arms around her and forgot for a moment why they were there.

Would that he could.

They arrived at the Apparation Point near the Burrow with a loud crack but no stumble, as he gripped her tightly to secure her landing.

"I won't break," she said, straightening and smoothing herself.

But he noticed that she allowed him to take her arm as they walked down the path and into the Weasleys' garden.

A Weasley he didn't recognise stood at the far end of the wall, his thin shoulders dwarfed by a Weasley jumper, red hair limp and hanging down his back.

Hermione slowed to a stop beside him and caught her breath. "George?" she called quietly. And then, "George!"

Severus schooled himself to no reaction at all, despite his sharp twinge of dismay. George Weasley seemed to be wasting away. One glance in those hollowed eyes, and he felt himself hurtling backward, backward into a nightmare, the nightmare—

And the spinning image of Fred Weasley flying toward the earth in a spiral of beautiful grace.

Sickening, horrific grace.

And him doing nothing.

Nothing.

He jerked himself back from the chasm in alarm.

It had never seized him in waking hours before.

It was getting worse.

And then he saw Hermione, face streaked with tears, in George Weasley's arms.

And George Weasley's own face ravaged with grief, holding her as she wept.

And before he could react, she was pulling away, reaching for him, for him. Pulling him toward the grieving twin, the one who had every reason to despise him, but who was looking at him with exhausted resignation, nothing more.

And then—turned back to Miss Granger, his eyes fixed on her stomach.

A little slow there, this Weasley? Or perhaps justifiably distracted.

"I think this is where I'm supposed to make some poncey comment about life going on?" George asked with the smallest of smiles. "Kind of nice, I guess, since it seems I lost my twin Fool."

Hermione's mouth fell open. "April the first, your birthday."

"Ah, so you weren't invited? Lucky you. The rest of them are inside pretending to be happy for my sake."

And then, he reached forward and touched her stomach.

Severus felt his hands fist, his jaw clench, and his heart turn cold—

Hermione stared—shocked—as Weasley dropped, stunned, to one knee, his hand still pressed against the side of her abdomen. Her eyes fluttered closed and then Weasley was pressing his face to it, his cheek against his Miss Granger's belly, against his son—

He felt Miss Granger grab his fist, clutch it, then a surge of... something.

And after a long, intense moment…

George fell back onto his heels, his breathing ragged.

"I hope—" Severus bit out, "—that you don't repeat that performance. If you think I will stand here and allow you to paw my wife and unborn child, you are simply proving my opinion that there wasn't a day since you were put on this earth that you haven't had enough fool in you for two; you clearly don't need your brother to spur you to greater heights of foolishness."

Weasley froze, his face pale, and then, to Severus's dismay, burst into laughter. He hoisted himself to his feet and cocked his head at the Burrow's front door. "Come along, then. Let them see what you've done to our Hermione."

At which point Severus would gladly have turned the other direction, but Hermione tugged him forward and he gritted his teeth to follow.

George flung the door open with a bang and, over his shoulder, Severus saw everyone turn in apprehension.

"Look who I found skulking around the premises," he announced, dragging the two of them inside after him. "Seems nobody sent them the owl. They didn't know there was a birthday party today—"

"Oh! Oh, my!" Molly gasped, clearly embarrassed.

"And that you're not supposed to cry around poor George," he continued, "and that you're not supposed to threaten him with Crucio just for groping your wife in public. I'd say somebody has been falling down on the job. But—" He shrugged. "I guess if people are going to treat me like things are normal again, it's fucking time to make things normal again. Mum, where's the cake?"

And then, as the most casual afterthought, "Oh, and you might have noticed, the greasy git got our Hermione up the duff, but don't worry, I'm pretty sure it's Fred in there."

As the room exploded with relieved gasps of shock and delight, and people converged on him and Hermione with dangerous intent to hug and congratulate—

Severus knew with a lurch that, by the way George Weasley was eyeing Miss Granger's belly, he wasn't joking.

XX

"You must call me Molly, now, dear. It's a rite of passage but you'll get used to it." Molly gave her wand a snappy swish and an old box of books slid out from under her bed. The top book had a young witch with a baby at her breast, one small hand clutching and grasping at the mother's open robe as the tiny mouth suckled. "I haven't had these out in years, not since I caught Fred and—" She swallowed and forced herself to continue. "—and George sneaking looks at the pictures."

Hermione studied the cover without touching it. Breastfeeding? Surely that was a decision that didn't have to be made immediately!

Molly patted the spot beside her on the bed. "Have a seat," she said. "You must have a million questions."

"I wanted the books just to get started. I think—I think maybe soon I'll go to Diagon Alley to find the latest…."

"But you don't want to draw a lot of attention?"

"No."

"Well, then, let me work on that for you. If you'd like, if you trust my judgement, I could go for you?"

"Thank you," Hermione responded, relieved.

Molly looked at her with concern. "What else is it, dear? You surely had more reason than this to come today."

"Sometimes…" Now that she was here, it felt like a betrayal. She sought words and couldn't find them and finally whispered, "Sometimes it's so hard."

Molly's face crinkled into a sympathetic smile. "Of course it is, but isn't it worth it?"

And she looked into Molly's glowing eyes and saw so much more that had been hard for her, so much more than she, Hermione, could imagine. And yet she saw joy there, joy that despite it all, yes, it was worth it. A small fissure cracked inside her and she felt the stress oozing away as Molly pulled her into the comfort of her arms.

"Arthur can be a pain the arse, you know," Molly said comfortably. "And he has the nerve to claim that I can be, as well, can you imagine that?"

"Oh," Hermione said, horrified. "I didn't mean—I'm not complaining about the prof—about Severus! He's so very much worth it," Hermione said, "that it overwhelms me." The words escaped before she could stop them and she felt a little embarrassed, like a gushing schoolgirl rather than a wife.

Molly handed her a hanky. "You're very beautiful together, you know."

Hermione met her eyes, startled.

"I can see how weary the both of you are, and it worries me, and yet—you walked through the door together and you simply looked so right. It's almost painful to imagine the two of you not finding one another…. And then, what you did for George."

"But we didn't do anything," Hermione said.

"Other than to be exactly what he needed. What we all needed. Do you hear the laughter?"

Hermione couldn't help but hear the swells that rose and fell from the rooms downstairs, and in the middle of it, occasionally, George's voice. The clown, the fool, the son, the brother, the friend, easing into his rightful place in the middle of laughter.

"But you aren't laughing, Hermione, and neither is Severus. You smile and you allow us to touch you, but you're still healing and it's rather staggering to imagine that it's taking you longer than it even took George. But it's coming for you, I can feel it coming." And then Molly placed her hand on Hermione's stomach.

Of course she'd think a baby would make everything all better.

"I'm surprised," Molly continued. "I'm surprised you're having a baby so soon, that you made this choice."

Hermione stiffened.

"Because it was a choice, wasn't it? You know that even if something like this had happened unplanned, you know you had choices, and yet here you are."

Hermione shot her a startled look.

"What? You think because I chose children I don't allow others not to?" Molly squeezed her hand. "I'm just saying, I don't think you'll regret this choice, either, even though it will sometimes be hard."

Hermione squeezed her hand gratefully. One startling thing about talking to Mrs Weasley. It didn't take many words for her to understand, and she had no shortage of words herself when it came time to respond.

Hermione looked longingly out the window toward the Apparation Point.

"And Severus didn't tell you he was leaving, or where he was going?" Molly asked.

Hermione shook her head, trying to damp down her unease.

"Men!"

Hermione sighed. "Indeed."

Molly took one of her hands and lifted it. "Look at those calluses. What have you been doing?"

"Potions," Hermione responded promptly. "Between the chopping and some of the ingredients—and I have a special Arithmancy project I'm doing that takes even more time and—" She looked at the fingertips of her right hand, stained with ink and as Molly had pointed out, nails ragged and skin beginning to thicken.

"How many hours a day do you spend chopping?" Molly demanded. "What kind of schedule does he have you on?"

"My own schedule," Hermione responded crisply, pulling her hand away. "But that's not the problem, M… Molly. I'm handling my schedule quite well. I just don't know what I'm going to do during N.E.W.T.s when—" She broke off, feeling the heat in her cheeks.

"What is it, dear?"

Finally Hermione blurted out the question that had been on her mind from the beginning and blurted, "What do I do about my bladder?"

Molly threw up her hands and laughed.

XX

Harry was watching her from across the room. And yet, each time she started to move towards him, he glanced away or spoke to someone else, leaving her feeling disjointed and uneasy and hurt. Well, she didn't have the energy to deal with Harry bloody Potter's moods. He was surrounded by people who loved him and, she supposed if she were fair she must admit, he certainly had his own reasons to need healing. Rarely was Ginny not tucked under his arm, and if Ginny Weasley and her fierce affection couldn't ease him through this, nobody could.

Why the hell had he left? She stared out the window, relieved that nobody was trying to pull her into conversation or pressing cake upon her. She needed him; she needed home. And she needed it now.

And then her attention was drawn to a startlingly familiar sound outside the window.

A dog barking.

She looked out the window and saw, not only the tall figure in black starting into the garden but—

"Albus!" she cried and, without thought or consideration, opened the window with a wave of her hand and hoisted her leg over and out.

"Bloody hell!" she heard Ron say. "She's going to—"

"Oh, hush, Ron," Molly responded. "She's pregnant, not handicapped. Gracious, I haven't been able to get that window open in years—"

And then she heard no more, because she was on her knees, her arms full of wiggling, licking dog.

Laughing.

XX

The late sun struck her like liquid gold, glinting off her hair, finding bronze threads in the pine-green silken robes, touching her cheek with the softest of glows. He'd never seen her as alive as she was with her arms around the wretched dog, laughing.

She'd come through the window like a hoyden and covered the distance between them as if she wasn't heavy with child, but now she held out her hand to him and begged, "Help me up!"

He grasped firmly and with a slow, strong tug, pulled her back to her feet—

—where she immediately flung herself against him and gasped, "How do you always, always know how to make me so happy?"

"I don't," he answered helplessly. "I don't know. I just… try."

She kissed him. Kissed him as if half the world wasn't watching from the doorway and the windows and probably from under the fucking rocks. And he let her, and even kissed her back, and behind his closed eyelids the world was silver.

The dog barked jubilantly, bouncing around them until she broke away, laughing that crystal clear laugh that danced over him and left him tingling with the rare joy of it.

"Before we return to Hogwarts," he said, his hand clenching tensely in her robe, "I thought you might want to visit Diagon Alley."

She froze in his arms. "Why?"

"We don't have to," he said stiffly. "I just thought you—"

"What about Albus?"

He watched her eyes dart away from him, saw her nervousness, felt her hand slide between them to cover her stomach.

"The beast will behave himself or he'll be returned to the Grange," he said, glaring the dog into a submissive whine.

"People will stare," she whispered.

He remained silent.

She raised her chin and she had a disturbing glint in her eye. "All right. We'll go. But only if we go to Flourish and Botts." She tossed her hair. "And if anyone tries to take our picture—"

"Hex them."

"Let them."

"What?"

She gave one of her frustrating half-shrugs. "I want people to see that we're happy, that's all."

Something was not right here, and it was almost enough to make him withdraw his suggestion.

But then she took his hand and leaned into him, and the gangly dog loped ahead of them towards the edge of the Weasley property and the Apparation Point.

XX

People stared, but between Albus's large form escorting them and Severus's glare, they kept a respectable distance. She'd returned with more fucking books about pregnancy and childbirth, and even a few advanced Arithmantic texts that made his eyes cross when he glanced at their pages.

They walked hand in hand.

XX

She pulled his arm across her stomach and locked her fingers through his. "I was afraid," she whispered.

"Of people staring?"

Her head's hard shake threw a cloud of horrid hair into his face. "Of… of seeing Ginny and the others, and hearing them talk about classes and—" She stopped, and then plunged ahead. "—and seeing how thin she was, knowing she's planning a gown for the graduation ball and—and I was afraid of caring. Of wishing. Of—"

Regretting. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, forced himself to breathe steady and slow and not reveal the fear she sent trembling through him with this confession.

"And instead, I was just bored. I wondered how they could still be caught up in such things, and I turned to tell you and you were gone."

"Not for long." He'd seen her surrounded by friends, her friends, people who had barely tolerated him, and she'd seemed content. She'd been the centre of their attention….

"I was so lonely."

He pulled her closer, pulled the covers up higher and when she tucked her face into the hollow of his shoulder, he felt dampness on her cheeks. "I wasn't gone long," he said, even as he felt a jagged relief that he wasn't the only one, the weak one who felt that ache of missing her when he'd left.

"Do you think we'll ever get comfortable?" Her voice was soft in the black night of the dungeon. "Like old shoes, like the Weasleys, like my parents? Do you think we'll get so used to one another we don't even feel it any more, it's just… habit? Because I don't think I could stand it, not feeling my heart race when you're gone and then soar when you return, and not having the world brighter and more vibrant just because we're together. What if we grow comfortable? What if we forget?"

"Maybe…" he said, running his hand down the curve of her spine, marvelling as always at the miracle that was his Hermione. "Maybe you misjudge what they feel."

And then, before she could speak again, the dog on the floor beside them whined in his sleep and—from the scent of things—farted.

"Oh, Albus," she moaned.

"I've got it," he muttered and followed up with an air-cleansing spell.

Between the soft snoring sounds of dog, the occasional hiss of cat, and the warm breath and the horrid hair tickling his shoulder, it was a long time before he slept.