Darkness Shadows Light

CHAPTER THREE - CAN I TRADE THIS LIFE FOR WHAT\'S BEHIND DOOR #2?

Ron sat down on his bed, Harry took a seat on his own bed, opposite him.

Now where to begin?

\'Is it bad?\' questioned Ron, his face pale, ng hng his freckles stand out more than ever.

\'I haven\'t got any life threatening illness or anything.\' Harry hastily reassured him. Ron\'s face relaxed a little.

\'Voldemort?\' he ventured hesitantly.

\'No this has nothing to do with Voldemort...at least I don\'t think it does,\' Harry replied, he regretted not asking Dumbledore morout out his condition. Could Voldemort be involved in some way? He doubted it, but it was a possibility.

\'Then what is it?\' asked Ron exasperatedly. \'If it\'s not life threatening and it\'s not Voldemort, then what exactly is it?\'

\'I\'m having a baby,\' Harry said quietly, watching carefully for Ron\'s reaction.

\'You\'ve got a girl pregnant!\' gasped Ron.

For once Harry cursed the stupidity of his best friend.

\'Ron, I\'m gay, there\'s no way on earth I could have got a girl pregnant.\'

\'But you said...\' protested Ron.

\'I said *I\'m* having a baby. I\'m the one who\'s pregnant.\'

Ron\'s face changed from bewildered to horrified and then to horrified mixed with bewilderment.

\'That\'s not possible!\'

\'Believe me, it is,\' replied Harry grimly.

\'But how?\' said Ron, still trying to get his head around it.

\'The usual way, I had sex.\'

\'You had sex? With a guy?\'

\'Of course with a guy! Remember Ron, I\'m gay.\' Harry was thankful at that moment that Ron really wasn\'t the father of this baby, he didn\'t think he could cope with a child as slow as Ron. He hoped that Ron and Hermione did get it together, maybe their children would have a chance of being halfway normal! Harry fleetingly wondered whether it was his hormones that were making him think such bitchy thoughts about his best friend.

\'So...who\'s the father?\'

Ah, the question he\'d been dreading.

\'Promise not to freak out?\'

\'Believe me, I don\'t think anything could freak me out anymore today,\' replied Ron dryly, his eyes constantly flicking to Harry\'s stomach as if he was trying to imagine a baby in there.

\'The father is...\' he paused, \'Professor Snape.\'

\'Professor Snape!\' Ron shouted. Harry was very glad he\'d put a silencing charm on the room, or by now the entire school would know.

\'Yes, Professor Snape.\' Harry confirmed.

\'You mean...he forced you...?\' Ron looked almost hopeful, as if that would be the least painful alternative. Harry tried not to think about the fact that Ron would prefer to believe Snape had raped him rather than believe he had submitted willingly.

\'No, Ron. Severus didn\'t force me to do anything.\' Ron flinched when Harry accidentally used Snape\'s first name.

\'You mean you actually wanted him to...\' Ron\'s facial expression was now definitely fixed on horrified.

\'Yes, I love him.\' Harry found it ironic that the first person he had admitted this to was not the object himself.

\'God, Harry, this it a bit difficult to take in.\' Ron said weakly.

\'I know...but there\'s more.\'

\'Please Harry, I don\'t think I can cope with anymore shocks today!\'

\'It\'s more something I need to ask you.\'

\'What?\' asked Ron, looking dubious.

\'Because of Snape\'s spying on Voldemort for us, it can\'t be known that he\'s the father of this baby, otherwise we lose our best spy.\'

Ron nodded in understanding.

\'So what we need...and Dumbledore\'s agreed...is someone else to agree to pretend to be the father.\'

Ron stood up face flaming.

\'No way!\' he said vehemently. \'There is no way I\'m going to pretend that I got you pregnant! For god\'s sake I\'m not even gay and there\'s no way I could pretend I was.\'

\'You don\'t have to pretend you\'re gay,\' Harry said, thinking quickly. \'We could say we got carried away one night and it was all a big mistake on your part.\'

\'Oh great!\' groaned Ron. \'That make\'s me look like a right bastard!\'

\'Please Ron,\' begged Harry. \'There\'s no one else I could trust and if you won\'t do this, the truth\'s bound to come out sooner or later.\'

\'I need to think about it,\' whispered Ron. \'This is a hell of a lot to ask.\'

\'I know.\' Harry agreed quietly. \'I wouldn\'t ask if I had a choice.\'

With that, Harry undid the silencing and locking spells and watched as his best friend left the room, hoping that he would still be his best friend the next time they met.

******

Whilst Harry was going through the difficult process of telling Ron, Snape was sitting in his office gazing unseeingly at a pile of unmarked essays. That he was going to be a father was shock enough, but for the \"mother\" to be Harry, well that was downright disturbing!

Much like Harry had earlier, he thought about how it had begun; he had been so surprised when Harry had asked for extra lessons over the holiday and fairly dubious. What he had not expected was that as he got to know Harry, he actually began to quite like him; he discovered that Harry never thought himself better than anyone else for having survived Voldemort three times. Snape had found himself having to re-evaluate everything he had believed of him.

Then had come that fateful day when he saw that Harry had become aroused - by him! That the-boy-who-lived was sexually interested in his greasy old potions professor.

Snape had of course heard rumours that Harry was gay, but had dismissed them as impossible. He found it hard to believe he and Harry would share anything, even sexual preference!

For a moment he had stood, stunned, looking at the tell-tale hardness, seeing the head kept bent down and the slight flush of the cheeks that knew he was being observed.

Suddenly the only thing he\'d wanted had been to be as close to that young body as possible; he found himself circling back round the cauldron to stand behind the boy on the pretext of his inadequate stirring; bringing his hand up to that slim waist...the moan he could barely contain as Harry pressed back into him...

Then they were kissing, he knew it was wrong but he couldn\'t stop himself. The years of loneliness urged him on to find comfort in this unlikely source. Then they had broken apart and Harry had shakily asked him what he wanted from him, whilst gazing at him with those green eyes clouded with passion.

He had said the first thing that came into his head, \"Everything\", but Harry had accepted that without hesitation and never looked back.

Snape shook his head as he forced himself back to the present day. A foolish word that Harry tak taken to heart. He knew the boy was under the foolish impression that he loved Snape, but he also knew that Harry had received so little love as a child that he didn\'t really know what love *was*.

Now there was going to be a baby. For a moment Snape cursed Harry for putting him in this position. Why couldn\'t he be normal in any way? Why did everything have to happen to him? The cases of wizard pregnancies were extremely rare, he was sure there had not been any in over a century, and none in a wizard of Harry\'s age.

Snape tried to remember what he had read about them, but beyond the basic facts and the probability that the child would be a formidable wizard, he could remember very little. He was sure Albus knew more than he was saying, but was equally sure that pressing him for information he was unwilling to give would be as useful as beating his head against a brick wall.

He made a mental note to go to the library tomorrow, this was definitely a subject he needed to know more about.