Baby Rearing 102

Sorry for the delay in updating. Real life and all that. Muchas gracias to Miffled for the wonderful beta job. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

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"You're saying that no one will remember anything of an improper nature between teacher and said student?" Snape juggled his son and the bottle containing, after much debate and experimentation, approximately ninety-percent-milk/ten-percent cauldron cleanser, in an attempt to feed the boy as he walked beside Hermione with Dumbledore leading. The quartet had already traveled through several unfamiliar passages and one inexplicably placed swimming pool, leaving Hermione and Snape fervently hoping that the Headmaster knew, if only in a vague, approximate sense, where he was taking them.

"Yes, that seems to work in a rather curious way. I think Salazar Slytherin came up with the variation on the Fidelius and Obliviate Charms used in the spell." Dumbledore halted abruptly in front of an utterly blank wall and gazed at it in concern, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"Did he?" Hermione questioned, taking advantage of the brief pause in motion as Snape handed her the uncooperative infant. "Headmaster, was there any chance Slytherin himself came to be under the influence of Eventum de Concubitus?"

"Strangely enough, he did." Dumbledore progressed in his study from the wall to the damp, moldy, but otherwise nondescript floor.

"What form did his punishment take?" Hermione managed to insert the bottle in Caligula's mouth and coax the child into taking a few sips. Her victory was short-lived, however, when she was forced to duck as the baby spat the concoction back out at her. The liquid projectile struck the wall behind her with a hiss, obliterating several bacterial colonies that may have possessed an instant cure to Dragon Pox.

"Hmm. Let me see. Began with a 'b' I think. Bird? No. Beagle? Blender? Blowfish? Blackbird? Bagel? No, no..." Dumbledore began to analyze the dripping ceiling.

"Was it a basilisk?" Hermione tried allowing the infant to drink from the bottle again, only to have Caligula repeat his previous action in Dumbledore's direction, this time devastating a primitive civilization of beings distantly related to slime mold. The poor creatures, having only recently achieved sentience, had just declared the neon-pink-colored lint on the Headmaster's robes King of the Mold-People when the deadly alcohol hit, snuffing out a war-less and utterly innocent way of life that could have taught the world much about peace and the ancient art of ham boning. Caligula giggled.

"Oh, that's it! Well done, Miss Granger. You really are quite bright, my dear." Dumbledore smiled absently at the wall behind her.

"Thank you. So the creature from the Chamber of Secrets was the result of Slytherin's affair with a student?" Hermione gave up on feeding her child and settled for attempting to keep him from jumping out of her arms.

"One of them. I think he lost track after seven."

"Seven?"

"Yes, the poor things. They started out quite happy creatures, you know. Didn't used to kill. Made you burst into your favorite song and bubbles came out your ears when they looked you in the eye. Or was it butterflies? Dear me, my memory gets worse every year..."

"What happened to them?"

"The witches caught on and were less than pleased, as you can imagine. Hence the deadly stare. And his subsequent departure."

"I thought that Slytherin left because of the dispute with Godric Gryffindor over Muggleborn students."

"That was the official story, I believe. At the time, they considered it better he be thought of as discriminatory rather than bear the consequences of his indiscretions. Parents would hardly have sent their virginal young girls to the institution after that. And Slytherin hadn't wished to advertise his near-unmanning at the hands of Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff."

Hermione was unhappy with this new information, as it conflicted directly with her beloved Hogwarts: A History, but was willing to put her dissatisfactions aside for the sake of gaining more knowledge. "Headmaster, does the protection charm apply to elves also?"

"No, I don't think so. More convenient that way. Though hard on the elves. In fact, there was one elf last week... what's her name... tried to tell me something for the longest time, but I had no idea what she was getting at. Bibby? Wibby? Libby? Tilly? ..."

Meanwhile, Snape, who had ceased listening to the conversation right after the Fidelius Charm was mentioned, looked as if his birthday and Christmas had both just arrived, bringing not one but two Orders of Merlin, First Class, and the werewolf head of Remus Lupin on a silver platter, presented to him by temporarily resurrected James Potter and Sirius Black while the two were suspended upside down showing off uninspiring charms in graying Tightie Whities. In actuality, he was occupied with bestowing upon the founder of his house every word of praise he could think of and imagining the myriad ways his NEWT class could now be more pleasurable than the normal routine of preventing Longbottom from killing everyone in the room. Snape had never considered himself an exhibitionist (though everyone else could spot it miles away) and was astonished to find just how many extremely public places in which he wanted Hermione. Several times. Give Longbottom an empty pot; assign tea-making to the rest... Earl Grey Restorative Draught... my desk... all the other desks ... again... floor (with Cushioning Charm)... all four walls... Hell, why not? Ceiling... storage closet... Great Hall, didn't quite get all the way there... ceiling too... Library, Restricted Section separate... that trampoline room on the fourth floor... everyone else's classroom... all their desks... perhaps not Trelawney's... Quidditch pitch, during a match... kitchens, she does have a fondness for house elves... note: Avoid Nilly... every window sill in the castle... Whomping Willow, very carefully... His eyes had not traveled the height of Hermione's shoulders for about the same length of time.

"Severus?"

"Nipples..." His eyes glazed over as he licked his lips.

"Excuse me?"

"Nipply! That has to be it! She was quite upset about something." Dumbledore's epiphany impressed no one but the infant, who had almost fallen asleep in Hermione's arms after the conversation had taken such a boring turn. After realizing he had the baby's attention, Dumbledore threw his hands up in a gesture of belated emphasis, and promptly forgot to move them as he attempted to discern the significance of his newfound knowledge.

"Wha--yes dear?" Snape had intended the uncharacteristic endearment to distract her from his previous misbehavior, but Hermione was not fooled one bit.

"Up here, please. Have you been listening, or was all your blood busy elsewhere? If I found that blank stare attractive, I'd still be dating Ron. We have to find a way to get around the Memory Charm. Or do you want to be known for the rest of your life as the Man-Who-Shagged-King-Weasley?"

As could be guessed from Snape's previous behavior, under most circumstances, being mentioned in the same sentence as a Weasley tended to leave him in a state of mild apoplexy. However, he was willing to put aside his principles for the sake of matters of higher importance.

"Why not enjoy it while we can?" He sidled up to her with what he felt was a disarming smile. In reality, it held all the reassurance one felt witnessing a shark grin at a guppy. Hermione eyed him warily.

"What happened to 'let's get married'?" Hermione queried as Snape began subtle movements to take the inconveniently placed baby away from her.

"Will we ever get this sort of opportunity again?" Hermione relinquished her child, and Snape passed the infant into Dumbledore's conveniently outstretched arms. Fortunately, Dumbledore retained just enough awareness of his surroundings to not drop him.

"We can't--the Headmaster's right there!"

"So? It's not as if he'll remember. Pull you leg up--no, the other one."

"The poor man gages the days of the week by the volume of crumbs in his beard. He does no...hmm--not need active attempts on our--ooh--part to worsen his condition!"

"What difference will five more minutes make?" Snape inserted both hands beneath her top layer of clothing, working his way inward.

"Severus, the experience of Albus Dumbledore offering me a lemon drop mid-coitus would scar me enough to enter a nunnery."

Snape pulled his head out of her now open shirt just enough to ascertain that Dumbledore was, in fact, searching his beard with one hand for something--Merlin knew what--and weighed the advantages of relocating the tryst to a safer venue--not losing his baby momma (or daddy, depending on one's point of view) to Dumbledore-induced religious conviction being the main point--against having to temporarily relinquish his very comfortable current position. He made his decision promptly after the Headmaster pulled a not-very-appetizing sweet from the vicinity of his chin.

"All right. Move left. No, my left!"

"Well you didn't specify, did you? What's to the left?"

"A broom closet." Snape fiddled with the door handle briefly before retrieving his wand and applying a strong 'alohamora.' The door crumbled to dust, leaving the lock and handle suspended happily in mid-air.

"Why is there a broom closet here? We aren't near anything." Hermione bit her lip in that adorable, deadly sexy manner, causing Snape to lung for the doorway while grunting, "Does it matter, woman? Always with the bleeding questions." The pair disappeared into the closet, leaving Dumbledore and the baby alone in the dark hallway. A few thumps, a bang and several moans emitted from the door-less room before a silencing spell was uttered. Nanoseconds later, a broom and a few dust bunnies fled the closet in terror. Dumbledore kept himself occupied in lecturing Caligula on the intricacies of flossing, giving the youngster a head start on what was likely to be a rigorous dental regimen once his maternal grandparents were made aware of his existence.

After an undeterminable amount of time, as those present were either unable or utterly disinterested in keeping track of it, the couple stumbled out of the closet, narrowly avoiding nasty bruises from the levitating door handle. In keeping with past events, the reappearance of his trusted employee with a tousled student had no more effect than to further damage a once brilliant mind as a single wave dislodges a grain of sand, until wave upon wave reduces a formerly mighty shoreline to two square meters of beach that one was forced to share with a toddler with one hand occupied in excavating his nasal cavity and the other tossing sand in one's eyes despite the warnings from his chain-smoking parents, and the sun-bathing presence of a corpulent man attired in a single scrap of clothing that would have been barely decent on its intended wearer but now made one wish for immediate visual incapacitation and a reduced gag reflex. In keeping with the metaphorical contents of his addled brain, Dumbledore merely grinned at them and suggested a continuation of their journey. After numerous corridors, arteries, halls, and atria, a few seeming disturbingly familiar, they came to a stop in front of a door etched in phosphorescent symbols.

"Here we are. This is a security measure I had placed during lunch; it's an Uncertainty Door. One cannot know both the location and purpose of the portal. In addition, this is a half-door, made up of little bits with spunk one-half, so you have to pass it exactly once and come back around before it will look the same. Idea of that lovely young man, German I think--"

"That's idiotic." Snape frowned. "Are we to endure this inane expedition every time we require a nanny?"

"We muddled through it just fine. I knew the direction we were supposed to travel, and you two knew we were going to the--where are we?" Dumbledore glanced around distractedly.

"The nursery." Hermione and Snape responded in burdened tandem.

"Ah, yes. Shall we?" Dumbledore tapped shave-and-a-haircut on the door, and it blinked "two-bits" back as it opened. Though the room had undergone vast improvement merely in becoming slimy-creature-and-cat-litter-less, the décor left much to be desired. In fact, Hermione's first thought upon seeing the room was that the color choices and layout had come directly from the Stevie Wonder/Liberace Home Furnishing catalogue. Snape merely assumed he was suffering retinal detachment as an aftereffect of his morning head injury. Caligula wriggled out of Dumbledore's grip and bounced to the floor, excitedly crawling over to the flamboyantly-painted miniature medieval torture play set.

"Are you sure he'll be safe in here?" Hermione blinked rapidly against the sensory overload.

"Absolutely," Dumbledore replied. "Hephaestus and Slippy will take excellent care of him."

An elderly, stern-looking elf appeared from behind a magenta four-foot replica of the Pyramid of Giza, complete with miniature sarcophagus and accessories, and walked over to next to Caligula.

"Hephaestus?" Snape inquired, dubious.

"I's Slippy," the venerable elf intoned. "That be Hephaestus." He pointed to what had seemed to be a portion of the wall that was, under further scrutiny, another elf in a bright green sequined pillow case. The elf nodded to them and continued his vigil over the infant, who was busy pulling apart little figurines with a gaily-hued rack.

"Well then," Hermione cleared her throat, not entirely comfortable with the values being instilled in her offspring but, new to parental responsibilities, willing to keep an open mind as long as Caligula behaved. "I suppose we should be going. Caligula, honey, we'll see you at dinner." She went over to hug the baby and received barely a grunt for her efforts. Snape gave his son an awkward pat on the head and moved toward the exit, only to be stopped by the Headmaster.

"There's no need to go that way, Severus. Those two egresses will take you where you want to go." He pointed toward two doors in the back of the room.

Snape looked murderous. "We just spent the better part of an hour--"

Hermione stepped in front of him, put her hands on his shoulders, and directed him to the third door with a few consoling words. The couple parted at the doors, one-half still somewhat grumpy, and left to face the remaining classes of the day.

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