Anxiety pulsed through his bloodstream, creeping in chills along his limbs and turning to electricity at the tips of his fingers. Try as he might, he couldn’t possibly survive through an entire day of classes without fidgeting in his seat as he watched those incompetents trying to finish their potions correctly.

Granger had caught him at the worst of times, a weekday morning. He couldn’t simply have left the castle and left his classes unattended, inviting as that thought was. Besides, she would have been at the Ministry, anyway. He would simply have to wait for the correct time for their meeting.

So, he sat and waited, watching fourth year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws trying to create their antidotes. He hated the clock for ticking so damn slowly and wished he knew precisely what Hermione had meant by what she said in her letter. It had him nervous as a rabbit unaware of the location of the serpent, and had him coming up with all sorts of worrying scenarios. Discreetly, he slid the paper out of his pocket and read it once again.

Snape would have had to wait until after classes were over, anyway. Still, he wanted to make sure that Hermione was all right. The playful imp he knew wouldn’t have sounded nearly so… serious in her letter if her problem was not either important or dangerous, and in the latter case it would more likely than not have been both. Actually, he doubted that she would have bothered to owl him at all if it was not important. He admitted to not being the best help in many situations. She’d have to be desperate to need his help.

That’s what worried him.

If she was that desperate for help, it must have been something awful, and he didn’t want her to be in danger, trouble, or pain. He wanted her to be safe and happy, strange as it was for the cynical Potions Master of Hogwarts to wish happiness on anyone at all. He hoped to God that she was all right.

Snape waited an entire morning, pretended restlessly to eat lunch, and waited through an entire afternoon of classes before it was finally around six-thirty. Damned if she wasn’t at home yet, why bother waiting an extra half an hour? So, instead of going to dinner, he went back to his rooms, and though the thought of changing into something more comfortable than his usual swirling black robes, he simply apparated, too worried about her to bother with his appearance.

There was a quite startled look on Granger’s face when she came out of the kitchen into the foyer and saw the dark man standing in the middle of her living room.

"Hullo, stranger," seemed like all she could manage to say.

"Hermione, what exactly is going on?" asked Severus, tossing aside any formalities like yesterday’s rubbish. "Are you all right?"

"I’m fine," Hermione said, but she didn’t really look convincing. "I just…" she paused, and sighed, as if she were trying to get total control of herself before she did anything. "Would you like some tea?" she asked, tilting her head at him.

"And an explanation, please," said Severus.

"All right," Hermione said. "This way."

She led him into her small kitchen, where she directed him into a chair at the simple table. Then, she went through the motions of making tea. However, Severus’ mind, instead of actually coming up with questions for his mouth to form as he had expected, was going blank in the event that he was seeing her again. She was so beautiful that it could have been painful, and he forgot just why he had ever left her arms on that cold morning in early January.

It was she who spoke first, upon catching him staring at her. She smiled in amusement as she stood at the counter, waiting for the kettle to whistle. For a little while, she simply watched him, the warmth and silence in the kitchen wrapping around the two.

"Miss me much?" Hermione asked cheekily.

"Would it ruin my malicious reputation if I said yes?" Severus asked, his eyes flashing merriment of their own.

Hermione’s smile changed from cheeky to subdued and rather demure. "I missed you, too."

Severus left his chair and walked to her, standing behind her and placing his hands on wool-covered shoulders. Hermione seemed to relax in his arms, giving a quiet hum of content as she backed up against him, allowing his arms to go about her waist. Severus pressed a kiss into her hair, and let her fingers link with his around her abdomen. He closed his eyes a moment, relishing in the feeling of her body close to his. This is what he had longed for all those weeks.

"Now," Severus said, "what is it you wanted to talk about?"

"Severus, promise me you won’t get angry," said Hermione quietly. She sounded serious enough that Severus’ eyes opened.

"I’ll try my best not to," he said, "depending on what it is."

Hermione paused, obviously reluctant, and quite nervous. Her muscles were tight with what could only be dread.

She released a nervous breath. "I’m pregnant. And I have every reason of believing that the child is yours, considering what happened between us."

Whatever he had been expecting, and even Severus wasn’t sure of what that was, this certainly wasn’t it. He froze for a second, simply standing there, his arms still wrapped around her. Then, slowly, he released her. She turned around, and their eyes locked with a nearly audible click. Severus had no idea in the world what to say to that. He couldn’t even feel a proper reaction at the moment, he was so in shock.

"Are you angry?" Hermione asked, sounding frightened that he might have been.

"No," said Severus, in what could easily have qualified for a whisper. "I’m not angry."

"What… what do you think, then?" asked Hermione. She was shaking, Severus noted vaguely, so he took her hands in his to steady them. Then, he realised that that action was not going to help her tremors much, since he was shaking, too.

"I think it matters more what you think," said Severus.

"Well, I suppose, but at the moment I want to know what you think," Hermione said, a smile just fighting its way into her eyes but making it no further.

"I think that it’s…" He searched for words. "Bewildering."

Bewildering, indeed. A child was growing inside of her; his child, illegitimate though it was. He had a feeling, though, that that would have to be fixed. No, don’t think of that, he told himself, not unless she says something about it. That would be moving far too fast, and you know that you don’t want to hurt her.

Damned if he’d say no if she asked, though.

"Bewildering?" Hermione said, looking unsure of herself.

"In that… it’s –Gods, Hermione, it’s almost unreal, but so beautiful, so wonderful," Severus said, not sure whether he was more surprised that he had spoken words like wonderful and beautiful or that he actually thought that they applied to the situation.

Hermione buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around him. Severus was mentally unsure of what to do, but physically he responded as though according to some script, gathering her in his arms and feeling the refusal to let her go wash over him. Hermione adjusted her position so that her ear was pressed against his heart, and then she spoke, words so soft that Severus could barely hear them.

"I’m glad you’re not angry."

He simply held her, and felt something not unlike love welling up in his chest and threatening to be let loose if something didn’t interrupt him first. Fortunately –or perhaps unfortunately, though Severus hadn’t decided –something did interrupt him.

A shrill whistle sounded in Severus’ ears, and for a moment he was disoriented, and then he realised that it was the teakettle’s whistle. Hermione slid out of his embrace, quiet and reserved, and prepared the tea. In silence he watched her, and noticed when she blinked hard, pausing a moment in pouring tea into two cups.

Then, she seemed to shake the moment away and finished pouring the tea. She handed him a cup and motioned towards the table. He sat down, but didn’t drink his tea. She did, though, pretending as though she hadn’t previously been on the verge of crying, though it was obvious that she had been.

"Have you told your parents about this?" asked Severus quietly. Hermione lifted her gaze from the liquid in her cup and looked at him.

"Not yet," she replied, effectively hiding her discomfort.

"Are you afraid to?" Severus asked. Hermione seemed to fidget slightly under his scrutiny, perhaps even more disquieted by that particularly probing question.

"My mum’s about as lenient as they come, but dad’s as opposite from her in that respect as dark is from light, though that’s not necessarily the best comparison. Anyway, even mum would be at least somewhat angry if I showed up pregnant on their doorstep, and wasn’t married to the father," said Hermione. "And dad… well, I don’t even want to get into that."

"Particularly if the father was me, right?" Severus asked her silently. Instead of saying that, though, he merely murmured a suitably thoughtful, "I see."

Although, that hadn’t quite been his question.

"Then, you are afraid?" he asked again.

Hermione shot him a slightly perturbed look. "If you must know, I actually am. A little. But you would have to know my father to understand. I’m almost afraid he would disown me, especially since…" she trailed off, and shook her head. "But I’ll tell them when the time’s right."

Severus was surprised by this show of disobedience to her parents. He’d expected someone like Hermione to be all good-girl and angelic, but considering the fact that she had not been a virgin when they’d slept together –and he was sure daddy didn’t know about that –he should have known better. And even if he hadn’t known about that, there was just something in her coquettish smile that simply screamed, "Good girl, gone bad." So, though she may not have started life with this condition, her years spent with Potter and Weasley hadn’t left her completely uninfluenced.

Still, it was a very wise decision on her part, in some ways, though in others he had to think that it may have been better for her to tell her parents, knowing that lying only made problems worse. On the other hand, he had a particularly rotten self-deprecating voice muttering in his ear several reasons why her fear of telling her parents might have been so acute. Shut up, he told it, and then decided to change the subject.

"Any names in mind?" he asked.

Hermione smiled. "A few."

"Such as?" asked Severus, settling back in his chair and finally taking a sip of his tea, which, he discovered with delight, was peppermint. His favourite.

"Well, if it’s a girl, Imogen or Hermia," said Hermione. "Oh, or Bianca. And for a boy, William… or Demetrius. I always liked that name."

"Read much Shakespeare?" Severus asked distantly. Hermione laughed.

"More than enough, not that there’s such a thing as enough Shakespeare," she said.

"I’d beg to differ," Severus said. "I find that much of his plays’ romanticism bores me, though I do have a soft spot for some of the tragedies."

"I would have expected that," Hermione said, not unkindly.

Following that statement there was a comfortable lull in the conversation, and Severus took this time to simply study her. Hermione seemed to be doing the same, her eyes wandering over his face warmly. For what seemed like the first time, she looked older, and he realised it in his conscious, though his subconscious had long realised it. This was a woman before him; Hermione Granger was no longer a little girl.

Her hands were wrapped around the warmth of the cup, a habit that Severus had noticed before, when they had run into each other in the kitchens of Hogwarts. He remembered how it had been insanely difficult not to simply walk up to her and kiss her when he had seen her standing there. Now, though, there was a far more wise and thoughtful look on her face, rather than the ill-masked lust that had been there during those tense few days of her last Christmas Holidays spent at Hogwarts.

She had often had a know-it-all sort of look on her face, like "I’m smarter than you, so please don’t waste my air," but this particular form of wisdom was new. Her eyes were tired, aged sort of, but still ageless and also lively, strange as it was. She seemed older than she was and younger all at the same time.

What was this? Was it new?

Was there something about having a separate being inside of you that made you more insightful, too? Or was it just the perceptiveness of a woman that had graced her features in the past several days in his absence? Why did he suddenly feel like the student under the impassive, imperious gaze of his professor? And more importantly, why hadn’t he noticed this before?

He only knew that it was sending the strangest chill down his spine.

"Are you hungry?" Hermione suddenly asked, as the strange sense of wisdom faded from her face.

"Well, I don’t want to be much trouble, but since you asked," Severus said. Hermione grinned.

"No trouble," she said, and in what seemed like less than twenty seconds but was probably more like ten minutes, she had something warm, fluffy, and delightfully eggy on a plate in front of him that tasted like ambrosia. He almost slipped into a mentality that it was, for all it had been made by the hands of this goddess sitting across from him.

Once finished with his omelette, Severus glanced at his watch, and sighed realising how long he had actually been here. He loathed to leave her, as he had so wonderfully fallen back into the warmth of her presence and was currently drowning in it. Hers was so comforting a presence that he wished he could stay with her forever.

Also, he somehow felt inclined to apologise, as though it were his fault that she was… in the state she was. Talk about mixed emotions. He wasn’t sure whether he was happy or angry or sorry or whatever. The only thing that he knew absolutely for sure was that he was totally confused. And secretly he knew that he had felt something deeper spark inside of him when she’d given him the news.

"Do you have to go?" asked Hermione, noticing him looking at the time. "I know it’s getting late."

"Yes," said Severus, not bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice. He looked up at her. "But I can stay a few more moments."

Hermione smiled in a way that seemed almost reproving, which was quite an odd mix. "If it’s work, you’d be going out of character if you were to avoid it," she said.

"Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I better not change my character," said Severus, managing a smile of his own, though it was a small smile. Don’t go! screamed some voice within him. He knew better than to trust that voice, though. No telling what would happen if he stayed.

"I’ll see you out," Hermione said, starting up from her chair. She was at his side immediately as he rose out of his own chair, and looking up at him.

She seems eager to get rid of me. Maybe I wasn’t exactly wanted here, anyway, Severus thought, fighting to not feel sad about it.

Hermione led him to the foyer, and then paused, turning to him and taking his hands in hers. For a moment her eyes rapidly searched his, and her fingers tightly wrapped around his, as though she was afraid that if she let go or loosened her grip he would float away.

"I don’t want you to leave," Hermione admitted suddenly, her voice trembling. Severus didn’t respond for a moment.

Instead, he moved closer to her, pressing his forehead to hers and closing his eyes. Hermione’s eyes slid closed in kind, and her hands moved up into his hair. Severus’ hand found its way to Hermione’s cheek, where the tears that had been brimming in her eyes had now fallen. He brushed the fallen tear away with his thumb, a soft, gentle gesture that he hadn’t thought would send such warmth into his veins. Hermione’s breath was warm on his cheek, and her dainty fingers curled and uncurled in his hair, a sensation that was comforting, just like everything else about her.

No kisses were exchanged despite the little space between their faces. Instead, they simply stood there for a long time in silence, each solely focused on the other. It was a blissful silence, much better than having to give an answer, and to both of those who shared the silence, it spoke volumes.

He wanted to say it then, and he almost did, but fright overtook him, and in a moment he had pulled away, heart beating rapidly. He looked in her eyes a moment longer.

"I won’t stay away long," he said, not sure why.

"How do you know?" asked Hermione.

"I promise," said Severus, his eyes acquiring the promise that his lips spoke. He pressed a brief kiss on her lips, a long enough kiss for her fingers to drift up into his hair as her habit was. Then, he broke away and with a last repetition of promise, he disapparated.

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