Darkness Shadows Light

CHAPTER TWENTY - SHOW ME A GOOD LOSER AND I\'LL SHOW YOU A LOSER

All the Gryffindor Seventh Years sat in their common room and were strangely quiet. The leaving feast was over (Gryffindor had once again won the house cup), they had their NEWTs and tomorrow they would leave Hogwarts without the security of returning in September.

Harry, however, felt that whilst everyone would be carrying on with their lives, getting jobs and meeting new people, he would be staying exactly where he was. Not that he minded staying at Hogwarts - after all it was more a home to him than the Dursleys had ever been and husbhusband was here - but he resented the fact that he couldn\'t even go off the grounds.

He looked at Ron, who was aimlessly staring at the floor. They had still not made up and now Harry doubted they ever would. Still, he had to try one more time.

Resolutely, he stood up and went over to where Ron was sitting.

\'Ron,\' he said quietly. \'Can we talk?\'

Ron looked up, but there was no anger in his blue eyes, just a weariness that made Harry\'s heart ache.

\'I guess it won\'t hurt,\' Ron replied softly. \'After all, after tomorrow I\'ll probably never see you again.\'

\'Don\'t say that!\' Harry protested. \'You\'ll always be my best friend.\'

Ron smiled sadly.

\'You know that\'s not enough.\'

\'It\'s all I can offer.\' Suddenly Harry became aware of the deadly quiet around them and the number of interested ears listening in. \'Can we talk somewhere else?\'

Ron shook his head.

\'There\'s really nothing else to say. I\'m going to bed. Goodbye, Harry.\'

Harry could have wept at the finality of those last two words. It seemed so unfair that he had lost his best friend because of his love for Severus. He watched as Ron climbed the stairs and wondered if he would ever see him again.

\'Well that could have gone better,\' said Hermione, who had come up beside him. \'It\'s strange, I thought that you loved Ron and he didn\'t love you back, but it seems I got that the wrong way round and frankly that doesn\'t make any sense.\' Hermione\'s face was full of questions.

All of a sudden Harry had the urge to confide in her. Since Ron had ended their friendship there had been no one his own age that he could *really* talk to.

\'Come with me,\' Harry said. Hermione nodded her head and followed him to his room.

\'Is there something you want to tell me, Harry?\' Hermione asked gently.

\'Yes, quite a lot really. First of all, you\'re right, Ron believes he loves me and he can\'t cope with the fact that I don\'t love him back.\'

\'Why don\'t you love him? I mean, I read up all about wizard pregnancies after you told me and it sounded like you have to practically be soul mates for it to happen.\'

\'We are,\' Harry said dreamily, his eyes going slightly out of focus as he thought of his husband.

Hermione\'s jaw dropped as suddenly it all became clear.

\'Ron\'s not the father, is he?\' she demanded.

\'Non won was just a good friend who agreed to cover up for us.\'

Hermione looked hurt.

\'Why didn\'t you tell me?\' she asked, feeling betrayed. \'I could have helped.\'

\'It seemed safer to keep the number of people down who knew the truth.\'

\'So who does know?\' Hermione asked curiously.

\'Ron of course, Sirius, Dumbledore and Remus Lupin.\'

\'Professor Lupin?\' Hermione gasped. \'How does he know? You haven\'t even seen him since third year.\'

Harry shook his head. \'Actually I saw him two weeks ago. Um...he witnessed our marriage.\'

\'Marriage?! Do you mean to say you\'re married?\' Hermione practically yelled.

Harry pulled out the ring he kept on a chain around his neck and showed it to her.

\'Please don\'t ask who it is, it\'s really not safe for you to know.\' Harry said.

\'Okay,\' she replied, her head in a whirl. All that she had known had suddenly been stood on its head. \'But how did Ron fall in love with you if he knew you were with someone else?\'

\'We had a few problems,\' Harry reluctantly admitted. \'And I leaned on Ron a bit too much and he began to believe that he had a chance with me.\'

\'Poor Ron,\' said Hermione sadly. \'No wonder he\'s been so quiet these past few weeks.\'

\'I\'m not sure he\'ll ever forgive me.\'

\'But that\'s silly, you can\'t help who you love.\'

\'Teln thn that,\' Harry replied gloomily.

\'Thank you for telling me,\' she said sincerely. \'Though I wish you\'d told me ages ago, I could have helped more.\'

\'Maybe, but we\'ll never know now.\' he replied. Impulsively he hugged her. \'I\'m really going to miss you.\'

\'I\'ll miss you too,\' Hermione replied, feeling the tears starting to well up. \'Make sure you write to me often and I want to know the minute the baby\'s born!\'

\'Of course,\' Harry replied. \'After all you\'re going to be godmother.\'

\'And will I find out who your husband is then?\' Hermione teased.

\'Hopefully,\' Harry replied. \'Once the baby\'s born we should all be a lot less vulnerable.\'

\'What do you mean?\' asked Hermione.

\'Well at the moment if anything happens to the baby, it would kill me, and obviously it works the other way round as well. Dumbledore reckons this baby will be the most powerful witch or wizard ever born and Voldemort ablyably won\'t be able to touch it.\'

\'Doesn\'t that mean he\'ll do his best to kill you before then?\' asked Hermione worriedl
\'
\'No, because he believes Ron\'s the father, he\'s convinced that it\'s not a true magic baby, as Ron\'s just not that powerful.\'

\'That\'s good, but how do you know all this?\'

\'S-Snape told us,\' Harry just stopped himself from using his husband\'s first name, that would have been a real giveaway.

\'But are you sure you can trust what he says?\' Hermione asked suspiciously

\'Snape\'s definitely one of the good guys,\' Harry replied with perhaps a little too much force by the look on Hermione\'s face. He calmed down a little. \'He could have betrayed me a hundred times by now.\'

Hermione slowly nodded her head, accepting his words. Harry was relieved that there seemed no suspicion on her part that Snape was his husband.

\'Well at least it sounds like ysafesafe for now,\' Hermione eventually replied.

\'I hope so,\' Harry said. Despite his own reassurance to Hermione he still feared that Voldemort would find out the truth.

\'So how come you don\'t whether it\'s a girl or a boy yet?\' Hermione asked curiously. \'I would have thought Madam Pomfrey could have told you by now.\'

\'I don\'t want to know,\' Harry replied. \'I want it to be a surprise.\'

\'And...um...one more question. How exactly are you going to *have* this baby? I mean none of the books I read actually mentioned that.\' She looked at him slightly embarrassed.

Harry laughed, he should have known that Hermione\'s thirst for knowledge would overcome any feeling of discomfiture.

\'Well Pomfrey reckons it could come out the way it was conceived...\' he couldn\'t stifle the laugh at the look of horror on Hermione\'s face. \'But that\'s really painful and dangerous, so there\'s going to be a surgeon from St Mungos on standby to floo in and perform a caesarean.\'

\'I guess they can\'t use magic.\'

\'No, childbirth\'s one of the few times wizard\'s don\'t use magic as there\'s a good chance it might react badly with the baby\'s magic.\'

\'Yes, I remember reading that.\'

\'Anything else you want to know?\' Harry asked with a smile.

\'Just the name of this mystery man,\' she said and then held up her hands with a smile at the exasperated look on Harry\'s face. \'Okay, okay, I know, I won\'t ask again. I guess I can wait another three and a half months.\'

\'Thank you. Now can we go back to the common room? I want to say goodbye to everyone tonight, I doubt I\'ll be up in time in the morning.\' Harry was now so large that he got tired very easily and since the exams had finished he had got into the habit of sleeping late.

Companionably they headed back to the Gryffindor common room where Harry said his final goodbyes to those he had practically grown up with. It was a sad occasion and there was genuine regret on both sides as he parted from his friends. Of course everyone promised to write, but Harry wondered how many of them would remember when they were off living their own lives.

It was late by the time he went back to his own room, but it cheered him up when he saw his husband was there waiting for him. He seemed to understand how Harry felt and just held out his arms and held him whilst he cried.

\'What would I do without you?\' he whispered, his voice muffled against Snape\'s robes.

\'Or I without you.\'

\'Let\'s try not to find out.\'

\'Definitely.\'