St. Mungo's

Disclaimer: Except for OCs, the characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling and her assigns.

Katherine fastened her earrings and looked at her reflection. "Do you think I look right for this?"

Severus came up behind her. "If not, I can think of a great many things for which you look perfect." He kissed her bare neck and pulled her to her feet. "I love you in blue."

"Is there a color you don't love me in?" she asked, just to be sure.

"Not that I can think of," he responded obligingly. "If I find one, I'll remove it from your wardrobe."

"Are you sure I look all right? I feel like I must have lost weight." She turned to look at different angles and pulled at the fabric. It did hang a little differently than it had on another occasion early in the summer.

"You were so sick a few weeks ago, what do you expect?"

"Is that it, do you suppose?"

He tugged on her hand to get her moving toward the hallway. "I'm sure of it. Never mind. It's just Lucius and Narcissa tonight. You have nothing to worry about."

Katherine shook her head. He didn't understand, and she didn't know how to explain it. "You men, you just don't realize how it is."

Dinner with the Malfoys was more relaxed than Katherine expected, and there was a surprise at the end of it. Lucius waited until after dessert was cleared away and looked from his hostess to his host. "Severus, I was hoping that I could hire your wife to take on a job."

Katherine shook her head. "I'm really not sure..."

He held up a hand. "I don't think it will take that long. Please hear me out."

Katherine looked at Severus. He shrugged, so she nodded.

"Severus is well aware that our Uncle Thaddeus Prince died a couple of weeks ago. I was named his only heir, and the will went through probate fairly smoothly. The problem is that the major portion of his assets never made it to our Gringotts vault. Will you find out what happened to it? The goblins aren't talking to me."

"Some families have legacies that are entailed to particular lines or connections," Katherine observed.

"Yes, that's true. Therefore, the question I have for you is whether you can track down any other potential heirs."

"You don't know of any?"

Her guest looked a little embarrassed. "He was so emphatic about me being his only heir that I confess I didn't pay much attention."

Katherine looked at her husband. He shrugged and nodded. "Well, it does sound as though this should go very quickly, and that I can do most if not all of it at the ministry." Lucius smiled until she continued with a wicked grin of her own. "Now all that remains is to haggle over my fee and expenses."

Katherine lay very still, wincing a bit as the Healer worked. Severus sat by her side and held her hand through the entire exam. It seemed endless, but there was much to consider. The Healer's look of concentration at one point became one of amusement. She stepped back and nodded to Severus that he could help Katherine sit up.

The Healer started talking. "It would seem that there's nothing to worry about..." Her assistant suddenly put his head in the door.

"There's someone who says they must speak to you immediately."

The Healer smiled and went outside. Katherine and Severus sat quietly as they listened to muffled voices outside the door. The voices were never loud but at one point it was clear there was a heated argument going on. Then one of the voices sounded resigned. Finally, a third voice was heard and the Healer came in, followed by a wizard Severus recognized.

"Geoff! It's good to see you again." He turned and looked at his wife. "Geoff is the staff Apothecary."

Geoff wasn't as effusive in his greeting, although he shook hands warmly. The serious look in his eyes seemed to convey a message that Severus instantly started assessing. The Healer was a bit subdued, although she still smiled.

"Where were we?" she asked. "Having finished my exam, I'm prepared to state unequivocally that you will be perfectly able to have children as soon as a minor correction is made. Geoffrey, here, has prepared the potion that will do the trick."

There was something in the Healer's eye that Severus did not trust, and his colleague was definitely trying to tell him something. He decided to change the pace of things. "Katherine has been exhausted with worry over this. Would you mind if we had her sleep for a couple of hours, first?"

The Healer looked nervous but then nodded. "Of course. A couple of hours won't matter one way or the other, I think. At any rate, if she's better rested, the results with the potion will be more favorable."

"Excellent," responded Severus. He put his hand into his pocket, dropping a vial that Geoff had slipped him while shaking hands. He then made a great show of looking through his pockets before finding another vial. "I have a Calming Draught right here. It's perfect for what we need."

Katherine was a bit surprised by a look in her husband's eye, but she trusted him, so she took the vial from him, noting that it was from the batch they had made together a few days before. Her husband nodded and she swallowed it. She was already quite tired, and it allowed her to drop off, but not before noticing that her husband brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead.

Severus slipped out of the room and found Uncle Sonny. "I need to do something at home right this minute. Can you sit with her for a couple of hours?"

The older wizard noted the way Severus looked up and down the hallway and spoke quietly, hardly moving his lips. He nodded. "I'll be here for as long as she needs me."

"That's one concern handled, then. Don't let them give her anything until I get back."

Sonny looked up, suddenly tense. "I'll take care of it."

They shook hands and clapped each other on the back. Severus made great strides down the hallway then, his robe billowing in a way that was familiar to the former students who happened to be watching. He went to a spot where he could Disapparate and immediately went to his laboratory.

He found Granger, Potter, and Weasley studying together and blessed his luck. There had been a little awkwardness since Granger's last visit at the flat, but that was forgotten at this time. "All right, you lot, I have one last assignment for you, and it needs to be done perfectly and within two hours."

He pulled out the vial that his friend Geoffrey had given him. "I need to know the components of this. Then we need a formula for an antidote and a dummy potion, both of which must be brewed within the next hour and forty-five minutes."

Granger looked aghast. "We can't possibly..."

"I swear to you that if you do this thing I will go back and change every Potions grade you ever received at Hogwarts to E, or O if it's already E."

Hermione quickly decided she was up to the task. The three together bent over a joint cauldron and began. There was much whispering and discussion, but at the end of ten minutes Weasley said, "We have the component list, sir."

Potter was finishing the antidote recipe while Granger was puzzling over the dummy potion. They watched as Snape's long finger traced down the list. As he got to the bottom three ingredients, he stopped for a minute, his other hand passing over his eyes momentarily. "I should have noticed...it's not quite what I expected," he said quietly. He asked more loudly, "Have you got the proposals for the other potions?"

They had finished them by this point and he likewise ran his finger down those. Hermione commented. "The antidote would have to be given almost immediately after the original potion to have the proper effect."

"Yes, that's why the dummy potion would be better." He looked it over and mused. "It's almost perfect, except you need something to give it the same color without changing the properties..."

"Oh, I didn't think about that." Hermione blushed.

"I have every confidence that you would have, given a few more minutes." Her blush this time was accompanied by a smile.

He thought for a few minutes. "There's a variety of blueberry juice that added right at the end should mimic the shade of blue... WILBUR!" he shouted. "Carry on, all three of you," he said as he turned to give the house-elf directions on obtaining what was needed that was not already in his stores.

Then he stood before a window and paced as they brewed, coming over to watch their progress at intervals. To the three who worked he seemed absent minded and worried, two attributes they never expected to see with him. His intensity gave them the impetus to work harder, and they used the efficiency he had trained in them during the past several months. One hour and forty minutes after he first arrived, Severus Snape watched his young assistants as they bottled their brews.

"Thank you," he said, fervently. "The potions look and smell perfect. I can't tell you what this means to Katherine. Later, I may tell you what this means to me. Thank you." He called Fern down to bring tea to the three who would continue to study and left with a pop and a swirl of his robe.

"What was that all about?" asked Harry.

"Something about that list of ingredients," answered Ron. "He said he had every confidence in you, Hermione. Did you hear that? It's as if he was admitting that he knows you're as smart as we know you are."

She smiled. "Thank you, I think."

"But what was it about the ingredients that made him smile and then look like he was going to throw up? What was he so excited about?"

Hermione looked at Harry oddly. "Didn't you look them up?"

Harry looked down at his feet. "Well, since you suggested the counter-ingredients, it didn't seem necessary..."

She sighed and shook her head, then went on. "Any one of those last three ingredients could be used to cause a miscarriage. Together they would be practically lethal to the mother, too."

The two young men thought for a minute and then both groaned. "That's not a mental picture I wanted," said Harry.

Severus returned to Katherine's room and found her uncle sitting next to her. She was still sleeping, but Sonny was frowning. "They're circling for some reason, but I chased them away."

"Let them circle, now."

"Do you have good news?"

"The best, but there is much to discuss. Will you come to dinner a few nights from now?"

"Certainly."

Severus smiled as he sat next to his wife and took her hand. "Katherine!"

She woke from a dreamless sleep and smiled to see his face so close to hers. "Is time to take that potion, now?

"Are you ready?"

She sat up immediately. "It's all I need, right?"

"Let me get Geoff. Sonny," he said to the older wizard. "I'm not sure you want to be in the room for the next part."

"All right, then. I'll just wait until you come back, shall I?"

"Yes, that's fine."

Severus found his friend in the Potions lab. "I can't tell you how grateful I am that you brewed the potion that will help Katherine," he said, clapping his hand into his friend's and slipping a vial with the dummy potion into it.

"I'm glad to be of help," answered Geoff, sliding his hand into his pocket. "Are you sure that she's ready for this?"

"Absolutely," was the answer. "She has worried and fretted over it to the extent that if we put it off any more it could well be the end of her."

"Ah, well, then, let's not keep her waiting."

They went up to Katherine's room and Geoff gave her the potion vial while the Healer's assistant watched. Katherine looked at her husband and he nodded. She took the potion and then winced at the flavor of it. Severus took her hand and advised her to relax. As she did, her uncle came and said goodbye.

"I have some things to attend to. I'll come to see you in a day or two, my dear."

"All right. Good bye, Uncle Sonny. Thank you for being here." He patted her shoulder and left.

Katherine had nothing to do but watch her husband. "So what is my condition and what does the potion do?"

He had no idea who might be listening to their conversation. He thought for a moment, while looking at her tenderly. "From what the Healer is saying and what I noticed when you returned from Paris, I think there must have been a blockage. Today's potion is supposed to clear things up."

"So now it should be easy to get pregnant?"

"Absurdly so, I believe."

She smiled at him. "Why do I suspect there's more to this than you're telling?"

"Well, there is a part I haven't told you yet. You should feel fairly uncomfortable in a few minutes but when that eases, they'll let us go home."

"Fairly" was an inadequate word to describe the feeling that came a while later. Katherine couldn't believe the cramps that went throughout her belly.

"Is this right?" she asked during a moment when it wasn't so bad..

"Yes, it's doing just what it should," he answered. He moved to the bed to hold her close.

She snuggled up to him. "That's better."

An assistant was waiting when the Healer walked by. "She's had hard cramping for half an hour or so."

"That sounds right. I should do an exam to make sure."

The Healer looked Katherine over and smiled, relief showing on her face. "It's working just as it should be. If you feel up to it, you may go home. You might see some bleeding over the next couple of days, but the potion is working the way it should be. You must avoid physical intimacy until I tell you it's all right. I'll go sign the paperwork so you can go home."

Severus smiled. Katherine saw an expression of great satisfaction cross his face. "Thank you," he told the Healer.

A/N: Thank you to Trickie Woo for beta reading this story!