You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Me, Lucille

Snape's bed was a tangle of stuffed animals, kicked off bedroom slippers, blankets, and pillows. Not to mention three children. He didn't see how he could fit himself in, even beside Fortuna who would immediately cuddle around him, so he pulled a chair up close to the bed and transfigured it into a smaller bed at level height with his.

"Daddy," Fortuna mumbled sleepily. He had put a calming draught into the bathtub in order to keep the itch away, but it also served to settle the children down. He was surprised that his daughter could still move.

"Go to sleep, my love," he whispered as he reached out a hand to rub her back.

"No...No, I want to sleep with you, Daddy."

"I'm right here, Fortuna. Go to sleep."

She shook her head violently before rolling over onto his makeshift bed, smacking him in the face with her plush bunny as she did so. Snape pushed the bunny aside and pulled Fortuna into his arms, resting her head against his chest. Her curls felt different than her mother's; they were silkier and finer where Hermione's were coarse and very thick. He would always feel awed by the fact that he and Hermione had made three children that were almost an exact mix of the two of them, especially in looks.

He would look at them sometimes, and look back on his life as a Death-Eater. He swore at least twice a week that if anyone ever tried to hurt his children, he would do worse than simply kill them. He knew that it was irrational, and his love for his trio always frightened him a little in its intensity, but he could not help himself. It was what love felt like, Hermione always told him.

Feeling weary and a little lovesick for his wife, Snape cuddled Fortuna closer to him and fell asleep.

Fortuna awoke happily ensconced in her daddy's arms. The happiness was short-lasting, however, as her red freckles began to itch her horribly, and when she itched them, they hurt!

"Daddy? Daddy, wake up!"

Her daddy opened his eyes and ruffled her hair. "Good morning, Fortuna."

"Daddy, my red freckles itch."

Her daddy took her arm in his hand and rubbed it lightly. "I have a potion we can put on your tummy. I'm sure that Augustus and Tiberius itch as well."

Fortuna didn't think that Augustus should be allowed to use the potion, since he was the one who gave her and Tiberius the red freckles, but she didn't tell her daddy that.

"I need my own potion, Daddy, because I'm a girl."

He smiled at her and rubbed her nose with his. "The potion is the same for boys and girls, Fortuna."

"But they're going to touch it, and they never wash their hands."

"I will be the only one touching the potion, and I always wash my hands. Come, I'll put some on you."

Fortuna settled into her daddy's arms as he carried her off to his bathroom. He had a large circle-shaped mark on his shoulder, and the skin was very soft on the mark. When she touched it, the skin would move along with her finger, and it fascinated her. She had asked him about it many times, but he always told her that it was just a scar from before she was born. He had other scars like it, but the one on his shoulder was her favorite. When she grew up, she wanted one just like it.

She had told him that once, but he only kissed her and told her to finish her bath.

Fortuna's daddy set her on the toilet seat and pulled a vial from the cupboard. "Take off your nightgown, Fortuna," he said as he poured liquid onto his hands.

Fortuna did as she was told, and let out a cry of dismay. She had even more red freckles than the night before! And some of them were puffy like her daddy's scar, but they weren't soft, they were hard.

"I have more!" she cried.

Her daddy looked a little sad and nodded his head. "You'll be getting many more as well. I'm afraid that the Dragon Pox are not a pleasant illness. Hold out your arms now, so I can rub this on you."

Snape was mentally writing out a letter to his wife.

Dear Hermione

Yours ever, Severus

Snape washed his hands while Fortuna put her nightgown back on, and reflected that Hermione would never go for a letter like that. First of all, he'd never get past writing the first sentence for fear of dancing fairies come to sing him to sleep, but it would be like waving a green cape at a charging manticore. Hermione would Portkey herself back home in a Quidditch minute, and he would go down in the history of the family as the Failure Father Who Couldn't Even Take Care Of Three Sick Children While Their Mother Was Out Of Town.

No, the letter must be written skillfully, masterfully. Deviously. He must make light of the children's illness, and assure her that he was indeed Wizard Enough for the challenge.

There was always the possibility, too, that Hermione could catch the Pox. As professors, both he and she took inoculations every year for minor yet infectious inconveniences such as Dragon Pox, Piker's Scurvy, and Golenden Rash. Still, every few years or so, one of the professors came down with a childhood ailment, if the strain was strong enough.

He brushed out Fortuna's hair and plaited it as Hermione had taught him to do, and led her back to the bed. The boys were standing on it, naked, inspecting each other's bodies.

"Look, Dad! Tiberius has spots on his tackle!"

"And Gus has them on his nose!"

Then a thought struck Snape dumb. What if Fortuna got pox on her bits? And how was he going to apply the potion to all those places on his children? He'd be arrested and thrown into Azkaban before you could say Longbottom.

Fortuna turned her nose up at her brothers and crawled back onto the bed that her daddy had made for them.

"Both of you into the bathroom," her daddy said crossly. "And take your clothes with you. Fortuna, here, let's get you covered up." He tucked her in quite well. "Stay covered, and keep your feet warm," he said before he followed her brothers into the bathroom.

Fortuna smiled and snuggled under the covers, happy that her daddy seemed upset with her brothers, and concerned about her. And then he would come back, and they would cuddle some more, and maybe he'd even read to her from her favorite book.

She was very disappointed when her daddy tucked the boys into the big bed after cleaning it up first with his wand, and then he left the room.

"Daddy's making us bwekfast," Tiberius said happily. "You has to sit next to me now, Fo'tuna. Daddy said so."

"No he didn't," Fortuna said, picking up her book. "He tucked me in here, this is our bed. That's your bed."

Augustus laughed at her. "You think that you're married to Dad, don't you?"

"Daddy's her boyfriend," Tiberius said, giggling.

Fortuna frowned and continued to read her book, though the words were too big for her to make out. She at least knew all the letters, and the pictures were so pretty. She could almost block her brothers out of her mind while she concentrated.

She had gotten to the third page when her daddy walked in with trays elevated before him.

"Oooh...it's Fortuna's boyfriend," Augustus teased. Tiberius made kissy faces at her.

Fortuna's daddy frowned. "That's quite enough, boys."

He sent the trays to the large bed, and went and picked Fortuna up.

"I need you in the big bed, Fortuna," he said as she grasped onto him.

"No, Daddy, I don't want to be with the boys."

"I'm sorry, love, but it can't be helped, unless you want to be in your own bed in your own room."

Fortuna started to cry. "I just want to be with you, Daddy! I don't feel good!"

It was the truth. Her bones hurt like she had just taken Skelo-gro, and her skin itched, and the boys were teasing her, and the only way she felt good was when her daddy held her because he made her skin feel good when he touched her arm and her back, and she knew that her daddy could fix anything.

"Can't you just wave your wand?" she asked.

Snape could feel the feverish heat from Fortuna's body. A look at his sons confirmed that they all must be running high fevers. Augustus particularly looked bad, his sallow cheeks were flushed, and his dark eyes were glazed over. Neither of them looked particularly interested in the toast and tea on their trays, and Tiberius was crying quietly while hugging himself.

"I don't feew good, too, Daddy," he moaned pitifully.

Snape banished the food trays from the room and managed to gather all three children into his arms as he cuddled them on the bed.

In listing his assets and liabilities, he realized that he had three sick children who would all require individual attention at some point during the next two days. There was only one of him, and he was unwilling to call Hermione from her conference. Not only would it hurt her vocation, it would prove that he was not Wizard Enough to handle the three children. Of course, calling for reinforcements wouldn't help his image one iota. Besides, Hermione loved him for his weaknesses more than his strengths, she always said.

But admitting that one could not take care of one's children...that was more than just a weakness, that was a failing.

Either way, he could not deny that he needed someone. Molly Weasley would no doubt be with her grandson before she went to spread the disease onto her other grandchildren. The potters were with Molly's aforementioned grandson, and therefore no help to him. Dumbledore and McGonagall were immediately ruled out, for though not infirm, they were certainly over the safe age to be around children with Dragon Pox. Shacklebolt would more than likely frighten the children, and he didn't want that. He especially didn't want them to see their reflections in his scalp.

No, as far as he could see, he only had two choices, and out of those two, he would have to find the lesser of the two evils.

But first, he would need to write a letter to his wife. He knew that there was always the probability of not writing at all, but when Hermione came home and found her children covered in pox, she would be livid. She'd be livid regardless, however, so it was just a matter of deciding which livid was better, and that was the Hermione who received a letter from her husband, apprising her of the situation.

Snape thought over his decisions, and revised only one. He would ask for help first. His children had fallen back to sleep while he thought, so he extracted himself from the bed carefully and tiptoed to the Floo in the kitchen.

"Nymphadora Tonks," he said as he threw Floo Powder onto the grate.

TBC