Triumph Out of the Bitter Taste of Ashes

AN: Reality and this story (if they ever even faintly mixed) have probably taken an abrupt about face from each other with this chapter. I do hope that I don\'t stretch anyone\'s credulity beyond the point of story enjoyment, nor that I insult anyone who has gone through anything remotely similar.

Next Chapter we see three boys go to the Burrow for break. : )~

Feedback replies at the end of chapter this time. : )


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Chapter Twenty
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Hermione stared at herself in the mirror above her vanity. She\'d stripped and was assessing her body sharply. Now that she *knew*, it was bloody obvious, and she was kicking herself for not having figured it out on her own . . . memory or no memory. Oh, a casual inspection wouldn\'t reveal anything -- and wizarding robes hid a multitude of sins -- but to her now critical eye, she could see that the curve of her stomach was a little bigger than it should have. When she ran her hand over that slight bulge, it was harder than it normally was.

She let out a giggle as she turned to view her profile, the sound a mixture of amusement and horror. \"Be careful what you wish for,\" she murmured to the air, shivering. She had that visible sign of what she\'d endured, one that would soon be *very* visible, one she could have done without. She sighed as she turned away from the mirror. There was a *child* inside her, one she\'d never wanted and never planned for. That was bad enough in and of itself. That it was because of the r-- the ordeal she had survived made it worse. Ambivalent, thy name is Hermione Granger\'s feelings.

What tripped the whole idea right past everything else and straight into surreal was the fact that--

**Oh, God! I can\'t even think it!**

\"Hermione Elizabeth Granger!\" she snapped, quickly dressing herself with short, abrupt movements. \"Take charge. It\'s a fact. You want people to treat you like normal, well, then, *be* normal! Deal with this and move *ON*!\"

She shivered as she slipped her feet into her shoes, sitting on her bed to tie them. It would be nice if it was as easy as that. Say it; believe it. **In a fairy tale maybe,** Hermione thought with another sigh.

Fully dressed, feeling a little less vulnerable with the . . . evidence hidden, Hermione faced the mirror once again. \"I\'m p-pregnant,\" she said, a frown appearing along at the stutter, \"with--\" She gulped and forged ahead, lifting her chin. \"Lucius Malfoy\'s child.\"

**I can\'t do this!**

Today she was supposed to go down and share what she\'d worked out from those numbers with Professor Snape. She hadn\'t yet worked out why this was so important to him, just that it was. She\'d already thought about it quite a bit -- back before her world tilted for the third time -- and she\'d come to the conclusion that it was a very . . . odd that he\'d assigned such a project in the first place. What was a potions professor doing assigning something that would be better for history of magic? In trying to figure it out, Hermione had managed to spend more and more time in the Hogwarts Dungeon. More specifically, she\'d spent a goodly amount of the last week in either the potions classroom, or surprisingly enough, professor Snape\'s office. The first two days, after about an hour of both of them working silently, he\'d risen from his desk, muttering at her that if she was going to be working on the blasted project in his presence, he, at least, was going to be comfortable, and he had shoo\'d her into his office. After that, she\'d simply gone there first.

She did have to admit that over the last three weeks she\'d grown more and more intrigued by what the numbers represented, and it had been a *really* nice distraction in the week since she\'d been back -- despite the subject matter. She laughed to herself. Truth be told, she\'d begun to spend almost every waking moment to it, in an effort not to think about anything else. The time spent with Snape, feeling blissfully normal -- no acting required, normal -- had been a side bonus she was grateful for.

What she had worked out on the project so far was . . . surprising. With what she knew about genetics -- not as much as she needed to obviously -- some of it seemed inevitable, tragic, but inevitable. Some of it though, didn\'t seem right. Relieved of the worry that she would be connected with the conclusions in any way, she hadn\'t bothered to make sure the initial data was correct; though, she was beginning to wonder if it was. Thankfully, all she was supposed to do is put it all together. She would add a note that she wasn\'t altogether certain the beginning data was complete, or was possibly inaccurate.

Hermione shook herself. **Way to distract myself,** she thought sourly. She was just so mixed up about it all. Part of her was angry, furious really, that the *choice* had been taken from her by circumstance and timidity. Another part of her, though, was relieved that she didn\'t have to *make* that choice, which was confusing as all hell. She\'d never have to know what it was like to live with *that* kind of decision. But then, it did mean--

She growled, launching herself toward the door, grabbing the muggle folder she was using to hold the project on her way past. She\'d had enough. She didn\'t want to deal with this now. Laughing bitterly, she slammed the door behind her; it wasn\'t like she had any time sensitive decisions to make.

By the time she had reached the dungeon level, Hermione had managed to turn her thoughts to other subjects -- sort of. She had told Ron the day Professor Snape had brought her back from her parents. Turns out, he\'d already figured out part of it. That had been something of a shock to her. She loved Ron dearly but had never really thought of him as overly perceptive. She was looking at him with different eyes now.

Of course, when she\'d finished telling him everything, he reverted to the Ron she\'d always known and promptly put his foot in his mouth. Oh, he\'d properly sympathetic and horrified, of course, but about 20 seconds into his \'sympathizing\' he\'d gasped out.

\"Bloody hell! I wonder what Draco\'s going to think?\"

Hermione had gasped, ltedlted and outraged . . . for all of about five seconds. The she\'d laughed. She\'d laughed so hard tears poured down her face. The look on his face when he\'d realized what he\'d burst out with was absolutely priceless, and definitely worth the momentary twinge of hurt. He\'d sounded just like Hagrid when, hand over his mouth, he\'d said, \"I shouldn\'t have said that.\" That had just made her laugh harder.

Harry, now that was another problem altogether. He felt so damned guilty. He hadn\'t said that precisely, of course. But he kept apologizing, telling her he should have looked harder, shouldn\'t have believed she was dead. He should have known.

She kept telling him that it wasn\'t his fault, but he kept withdrawing into himself. Hermione didn\'t know what she was going to do about that. She\'d asked Ron already, and he agreed that Harry hadn\'t been himself. He\'d started pulling away just before Hermione had come back. He was positive that Harry knew something they didn\'t, and wasn\'t talking about it. Hermione was pretty sure he was right, but didn\'t know how to go about getting this new Harry to talk. He was so different now.

She sighed as she approached Professor Snape\'s office door, thrusting the problem of Harry to the side for the moment. She giggled as her mind drifted back to the day she\'d told Ron again.

\"So, what\'s with you and *Draco*,\" she had asked, smirking, ignoring the tight knot of fear she felt even mentioning anyone from *that* family.

Ron had blushed about six shades of red and spent a good two minutes stammering before managing to tell her, \"nothing!\"

Needless to say, she hadn\'t believed him. She did wonder what had happened that the two of them could be civil, let alone anything closer. He hadn\'t been ready to tell her that day, and she certainly hadn\'t been ready to listen, but she swore to herself that soon, she would pull Ron aside and get him to spill. Draco hadn\'t done anything to her -- well, beyond being an arrogant, bully, prat throughout school -- and Hermione was determined not to let the arsehole who\'d hurt her, make her live her life in fear. She wouldn\'t let him dictate her actions even after he was dead. She was not going to let him win that way.

Swinging back up into anger again, Hermione slammed the office door behind her as she entered Professor Snape\'s domain, stomping toward his desk. Throwing herself into the only spare chair, she remained silent, waiting for Snape to say something, anything, rather than just glare at her.

\"Student manners beneath you now?\" he snarled lowly.

\"Oh!\" Hermione exclaimed, a false sweetness coating her words. \"Forgive me, Professor Snape. Whatever was I thinking. Good evening, Professor Snape. Are you busy Professor Snape? I\'ve brought that report you wished to discuss, but I could come back later, since your time is *so* precious, and mine as a lowly student is absolutely worthless,\" she retorted, the saccharine in her voice turning viciously bitter by the last word.

\"Oh, and are we in a *mood* today?\" Professor Snape asked smoothly, the quiet even tenor of his voice fooling no one.

\"Yes, *we* are in a mood today,\" Hermione snapped back, not really caring that was quite likely inciting her stern potions professor into what could be a truly impressive rage. \"We\'re a matching bloody set, we are.\"

Professor Snape snorted in response, and then did someg Heg Hermione would never have expected. He laughed. It was a short, strangled sound, stopped almost as soon as it began, but it was a laugh none-the-less. His expression turned sour immediately after, and Hermione could have almost doubted it had happened at all, -- if it hadn\'t been the touch of disbelief she could see in his face.

\"Well?\" Professor Snape demanded. \"Show me the report.\"

Shaking her head, Hermione held out the folder. \"The permutations are--\" She hesitated as the folder was pulled from her hand. \"--surprising.\"

Snape just arched an eyebrow at her in disdain. \"For you, perhaps,\" he sneered.

\"No,\" Hermione replied smugly, for once not even trying to control how she sounded. \"I think you\'ll find it surprising too, unless, of course, you\'ve already gone over the data.\"

His eyes narrowed as he opened the folder.

\"I\'d suspect that the numbers were slanted,\" she continued, watching the professor closely, \"if it wasn\'t for the fact that--\"

\" *Weasley* was involved in documenting them?\" Snape sneered at her, taking his attention from the report. The condescension in his voice was thicker than she could remember it being in since the middle of 5th year.

\"Actually,\" she drawled back, amused at his assumption. **Okay, the seesaw ride of emotions can stop anytime now,** she thought in exasperation. \"I was going to say Malfoy,\" she continued, \"but have it your way.\"

\"What?\" he demanded, his head snapping back down to stare at the report as if it had suddenly become coated with poison. Quickly turning over the cover page, he glared as he read.

Hermione waited patiently -- well, semi-patiently -- watching the myriad of reactions flow over the normally well controlled face. She knew the exact moment he put it all together.

His head snapped up and while his habitual sneer was gone, his glare was deeper than ever. \"Are you sure about these computations?\" he demanded abruptly.

\"As sure as I can be since I didn\'t gather the original data,\" Hermione replied.

\"Don\'t be deliberately obtuse!\"

Hermione sighed, and rephrased. \"The computations themselves are accurate. I triple checked them. As long as the original data is accurate, the final findings are accurate.\"

Professor Snape groaned. \"This is not going to go over well,\" he murmured.

Hermione was sure the words had not been directed at her, but she let out a snort of laughter despite that. She received a dire glare for her trouble. \"That\'s the most outrageous understatement I\'ve ever heard, Professor,\" she explained.


TBC
Kiristeen
Feedback: it\'s inspirational! : )
Kiristeen@kiristeen.com


Deb -- Thanks! You\'re right, it\'s not always. And it\'s getting there. : )~ Slowly but surely.
Shemham -- Yup, she really did. lol And thanks! : ) I love writing Snape. He\'s such a meaty character to get into.
Shiv -- Thanks! I like surprises too. Well, to a point. Ones that I can look back and see the foreshadowing for. Things completely out of the blue, those sometimes throw me. Hope it was the former, for you.
Rilla -- lol me too. At that point, I think open honesty, no matter how snarky the package would be just the medicine needed. Hmmm, it always seems to be the third. LOL
SecretlySeverus -- Thanks!! That\'s a very generous compliment. ::grins hugely:: I hope I can keep you interested through to the end.
GeekGoddess -- Thank you, and yes, it was definitely intense. I\'m glad you\'re enjoying the slow development of their interest. : )


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