The Moon Has Spoken

Fiddler did everything in her hands to avoid being at home.
She doubled shifts, she stayed to help at the DR, and she even assisted on emergency surgeries, out of schedule cabinet tests, and autopsies, she lurked around Mulligan and tested cyanide in everything she could lay hands on, taking frantic notes that usually went to the bin.

All of it for the sake of mental peace.

She also stayed at the hospital at nights, sleeping in a very uncomfortable chaise longue in the Medical Lounge, wondering idly if Severus still slept in her bedroom, and trying to convince herself she didn’t care.


And although she barely felt morning-sick, she hadn’t threw up more than twice, and she didn’t have weird cravings at all, she was managing to lose all the weight she had wanted to get rid of her entire life, just due to her frantic work schedule.
Molly was worried to death about her, and she tried by all means to get her to eat and rest, but Fiddler wouldn’t listen. Molly was about to tell her that, if she kept that up, she’d lose the child, and she’d snapped her mouth shut as the horrified thought occurred to her that Fiddler might just be aiming that goal.

The final breakdown came at last, as it was bound to, and one afternoon, as Fiddler was walking downstairs to go back to the hospital after a short nap, a quick shower and a perfunctory meal, she felt everything start dancing around her, and with a soft moan she rolled the the way downstairs, after blacking out completely.
She came about a few minutes later, surrounded by the concerned faces of everybody (except for Severus, she noted), and the twins, Harry and Ron, carried her back to bed despite her feeble protests.

It was there where Severus found her, after learning what had happened from a really outraged Molly, who urged him to stop acting like an arse and go to her. He walked silently towards the bed, and he had to swallow the horrified grunt that came to his throat at the sight of her sleeping face, with horrible dark smudges under her eyes, paler than the white sheets in which she lay, lips dry and grayish, her hands curled into fists under her jaw. He definitely hadn’t seen much of her in the past weeks, but this was outrageous. She di loo look just worn out; she looked terminally ill.

“Fiddler…” he murmured.

She did not stir. Not that he’d expected her to. He sat on the bed next to her, just to watch her sleep, but the springs creaked and she woke.

“Hello”, she said with no inflection.

“Hello. How do you feel?”

“Fine”.

“You look everything but fine”.

“Thank you”, she mocked.

“You know what I mean. Are you… going to see someone? As in a doctor?”

Fiddler shrugged.

“I will have my first OB check up when I reach eight weeks… Two months, that is. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I see. And, in the mean time? Will you work yourself to exhaustion?”, his tone was reproachful.

She didn’t answer.

“Molly informed me you fainted”.

“So I did”.

“And?”

“And— What?”

“Fiddler! What are you trying to do?”

“Do you want the truth?” he steeled himself, because she was as mercilessly honest as he was. “Stay away from you”.

“Is that so?” Severus’ tone was dangerous now. “And why would that be?”

“You forget I can get inside your mind, don’t you? So I betrayed you, is it? You poor victim, everyone keeps stabbing you in the back. You break my heart. Write me a novel or something, will you, but just for the record, allow me to enlighten you about a little fact: I dt get get pregnant by myself”, she hissed, her eyes burning with anger. “Like it or not, you had something to do with it, and, like it or not, I am not going to get rid of it. So if you want to end this, now would be the right time to say it”.

A faint blush had spread on her face, and her eyes were shining with unshed tears. Severus took hold of her hand, refusing to react to her outburst. A part of him believed she was entitled. She was right, he’d acted like the victim… And he was too old to keep wallowing the past like that. He was risking his present by doing so.

“Fiddler, I— do not wish to ‘end this’, I do not want to lose you and what we— What we have. But—”

“But you don’t want the baby. Well, then I guess you’ll just stick around until he’s born and then banish?” she said with her trademark irony.

“Do not be stupid”, he replied sternly. “I will… accept it. Eventually”.

Fiddler’s almost transparent lips curled up in a disdainful smile.
’ll ’ll keep my hopes up, then”, she said. “On the other hand, you can keep your hopes up as well… There’s a good chance I might not be able to carry to full term”.

Severus looked at her bewildered.

“What?”

“Well, you know… I don’t know how my… internal organs work, given that I am not a regular human at all. Maybe my chromosomes are different and the baby will be so abnormal I will miscarry by mere natural selection. Or my uterus might not be designed, so to speak, to bear a child, neither human nor wizard. My body may reject it or something… I just— Don’t know. So maybe you’ll get yours after all”.

“Stop it, Fiddler”, he said, hoarsely. “That is not what I want either. I never asked you to get rid of it. I am merely—”

“Betrayed. Hurt. Confused. I know. I am just stating a fact here. There’s a good chance that this baby will die”.

Severus finished the sentence in his head: as well.

And he felt outraged, as if she’d said it herself. So he hit back.

“You are so damned cruel, Fiddler… You remind me so much of—”

But he didn’t get to finish the sentence. A small, pale hand shot forward and slapped him right in the face. Fiddler sat up abruptly and pinned him to the spot with only the murderous light in her eyes.

“Don’t you ever compare me to that bitch again, do you hear me? NEVER!” her voice was trembling, and tears were gliding down her cheeks. “Oh, I might not be as gorgeous as your beautiful Swan but believe me when I tell you I’d rather slash my own neck before doing what she did… So I don’t want to hear her name ever again… It’s bad enough that I get to see her still haunting your mind…”

She threw away the sheets away violently and got off the bed without looking at him. Severus held out a hand to stop her, and noticed she was still shaking with rage.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Back to work”, she spat.

“Like Hell you are”, he said with his best professorial tone. “You shall stay here and rest. You’re pregnant”.

Fiddler turned to look at him and he shrunk at the weight of her gaze. She had got upset, but she did resemble Wynn a lot in her own wicked way.

“I thought we had agreed that only eventually would you care about my… betrayal”.

And without another word, she walked out on him.



A truce.

That’s how it felt like between them, especially at nights, when Fiddler lay tensely next to Severus, feeling his gaze on her as if she was a Trojan Horse with a deadly army within her.

They hadn’t made love since that fateful baby shower, and Fiddler had to admit she missed the feel of him terribly. But she didn’t even dare to lean her head on his shoulder to sleep. It felt almost like he was still sharing her bed out of duty, and Fiddler had come to the conclusion that he didn’t even want her anymore, for he had made no move to touch her at all since their last argument.

She sighed.

“Severus?” she said, half expecting him to be asleep already.

“Yes”.

“Um— My… OB appointment is tomorrow at four o’clock… if… If you want to come”.

She’d thought he would refuse, either politely or curtly, but her surprised her when he answered silkily:

“I will be there”.

Fiddler smiled slightly and turned to her side to sleep. Then he startled her again by shifting her to face him, and pulled her close.

The intruding embryo was quickly forgotten among the waves of passion and immense pleasure they both shared, and Fiddler allowed herself to cry at last as she climaxed, because she loved him, and because she knew he loved her as well, she could feel it, she could see it in his mind, as well as the confused emotions the baby in her womb stirred in him.

She clung to him as he soothed her, and mumbled her love for him against his chest until she fell asleep in his arms.

~*~*~*~*~

Severus accompanied Fiddler to the hospital he’d already visited in his dreams. He waited along with her until a nurse led them into a room that smelled funny, with a chestnut desk, a wall loaded with certificates, a small exploratory bed and a huge machine with a screen attached to it.
Severus had to answer an annoyingly high amount of questions he found rather insulting and had to endure the sight of another man splaying his hands on Fiddler’s belly, as she struggled not to giggle and he bit back a warning about her ticklishness.
Fiddler and Doctor Lennox Kirby were soon lost into the weird language that was common to medical fellows, and Severus only connected back when he watched Doctor Kirby put what it looked like a small, thick wand to Fiddler’s belly and soon enough the room was filled with a very loud noise that strongly resembled a racing horse.

“The baby’s heartbeat”, the doctor clarified. “Only…” but he didn’t finish the sentence, shifting the wand on Fiddler’s belly. She giggled.

Severus looked at her and he was startled to see her eyes widen suddenly and to hear her say, in a rather urgent voice:

“Lennox, turn the screen!”

Dr. Kirby obliged and moved the screen so Fiddler could look at it. Severus watched her jaw fell open.

“Oh—Oh… God…”

“Congratulations! Fiddler, that’s—”, Kirby said, but he might have read into her expression, for he added nothing else.

Fiddler remained silent during most of the ride back home. Severus wanted to know what had astonished her so, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Instead, he perused the load of indications Dr. Kirby had given Fiddler and he was absurdly relieved when he learned having sex wasn’t among the list of proscriptions. He also found out that she needed to nap at least two hours a day besides her usual eight hours at night, and that she must sleep on her left side; she had to drink a reasonable amount of fluids, keep her feet up, eat properly and four times a day, do some light exercise and be relaxed and calmed.
Despite himself, he tried to remember if Wynn had ever done any of those things and his memories only informed him he had actually known she was with child when she was about to deliver Lucas, as he didn’t really see much of her in the best of cases.
He looked at Fiddler, whose eyes where fixed on the road before them, and suddenly he thought that, with her, he would actually have the chance to become involved in the development of his child, and for the first time since he had learned about Fiddler’s unexpected pregnancy, he felt he could actually embrace that baby… and maybe, even love him.
Or her.

That last thought stirred a question.

“Fiddler?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you know the— Baby’s sex?”

She smiled and he suddenly wanted to kiss her.

“No... It’s too early yet”.

“Ah”.

He remained silent for a while and finally, he asked:

“Fiddler?”

“Yeah”.

“What did you find so startling back in the doctor’s office?”

Fiddler sighed and Severus watched her go taut, as if fearing he’d fret. She drew in a very deep breath and said:

“Please, don’t freak”, it was not a good start. “But... Oh, god... I don’t know how to say it... I just... Severus, we—, I mean, I— I’m having twins”.

Severus was deprived of the power of speech until they got to Elvenpath.


~*~*~*~


Fiddler’s belly grew incredibly fast as the time passed.

She was almost twenty weeks along with the pregnancy and everybody in Elvenpath, Moody included, were all of a dither. Molly fussed around her as a Mother Hen, and she had busied herself on knitting enough baby jumpers to dress a dozen babies for a year. Ginny, Tonks and Hermione were Fiddler’s permanent companions and Severus had spent more than one afternoon drinking tea mug after mug, trying to pick baby names, browsing through maternity magazines to decide which color would suit the nursery and hearing Fred and George’s silly jokes to his unborn children. Harry and Ron had offered Fiddler to teach the babies how to ride brooms and play Quidditch and Severus had nearly died at the perspective of having his children trained by two Gryffindors. Fiddler had laughed heartily, and just to annoy him, Severus was sure, had graciously accepted their offer.


To Severus, she looked radiant. She had started to waddle, to grunt everytime she sat down, to hold her aching back and to spend half the day in the bathroom, but the smudges under her eyes had faded, she smiled rather oftenly, both to herself and to him, and she hummed happily all day long. She slept quite a bit as well, and as Severus seldom had anything better to do, he usually joined her in bed, with a good book to read while she napped, and he had reluctantly admitted to himself he actually enjoyed the feel of her rounded tummy pressed against him.

He looked down at her, snuggled to him and sleeping peacefully, and he sighed.

The CD player on her nightstand was playing a song as usual, and for once Severus’ skin didn’t curl as he heard the words in Latin echo in their room.

Cursum perficio.
Verbum sapienti:
quo plus habent,
eo plus cupiunt.
Post nubila, Phoebus
Iternum

In fact, he found them utterly fitting.

They had resolved their issues in the past few weeks without really discussing them, as Severus grew used to the idea of the two babies steadily growing inside of her. And that slow acceptance had determinedly turned into cautious enthrallment, and, quite recently, into a hesitant thought, nagging in the back of his mind.
He had weighed all possible words and scenarios, but he still hadn’t found neither the nerve nor the time to say it. Not because he doubted it in the least, after all, she was carrying his blood...

With another sigh, he shifted to his side to cradle her to him with legs and arms, pressing purposely his own stomach against her bulging belly. He was starting to doze off when something that felt like a small but unwavering nudge on his midriff startled him.
Out of instinct, he drew back and put a hand to Fiddler’s stomach. Yes, there it was again, a soft movement that caused his hand to rise and tingle. He removed it, astounded, and shook Fiddler awake.

“Fiddler! Fiddler, wake up!”

She stirred and opened her eyes, but just barely.

“Mmm...?”

“Fiddler... Something— The— It is moving!”

She frowned, and when it clicked, she burst into soft chuckles.

“Oh, Severus, it’s the babies!”

“What? They move?” he sounded as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Well, of course they do! They’re alive! They sleep and wake, they kick around all day, they even suck their thumbs...”

“Ah”, Severus said quietly.

He held her to him and buried his crooked nose in her hair.

“I— did not know”, he whispered, and before he could think better of it, he had added: “Wynn never allowed me to be a part of it”.

Surprisingly, Fiddler didn’t fret at the mention of Wynn. She merely shifted to lay on her back, and taking hold of his hands, she put them to her belly and instructed him on the various “clinical maneuvers” doctors used to assess the child’s position in the womb, and she let him feel the movement of his children inside her, pointing out when a head or a foot poked into her skin.
Saying Severus Snape was astounded was not saying enough. He was at a loss of words.
But his Slytherin mind recovered soon enough, and told him to seize his chance. It was a golden opportunity and he didn’t miss it.
With a hand on her belly and the other one cupping her chin, he bore into her eyes and said softly, using for the first time her real father’s last name:

“Fiddler McGonagall... Would you be my wife?”