Three\'s A Crowd

Part - 4

\"Students, may I have your attention please? I have an announcement to make.\" The Headmaster smiled brightly. Everyone turned his or her collective attention toward the staff table at the front of the hall, looking at him expectantly. Though few students noted that at his end of the staff table Professor Snape looked a bit more pale then usual.

In fact he looked down right ill.

\"As all of you should know by now, Professor Snape had been asked to brew the Maternis potion by the Ministry, for the Siberian Harpies. The potion causes impregnation by touch. Unfortunately, there was a bit of an . . . accident in the lab with a faulty beaker, and Professor Snape was doused with the potion. Remus Lupin, who is visiting us this week, found him unconscious and touched him before he realized what had occurred. So now Professor Snape is with child.\" There was stunned silence. \"Well, actually, with children, he is having triplets.\"

There was stunned silence for about three seconds. Then all the tables save Slytherin erupted into gales of laughter.

Ron Weasley almost fell off his chair as Harry slapped him on the back unable to believe the luck. The Gryffindors were pounding the table and howling with laughter.

Now the git was going to be bloody miserable for nine months!

Hermione Granger could only gape at the news. Despite almost seven years among wizards, her muggle-raised mind had trouble grasping the idea of a pregnant man. Not that she had any sort of moral problems with the concept itself, her natural intellectual curiosity was much stronger then any other consideration.

A very long session in the restricted section was called for.

Draco Malfoy looked as if someone had just told him that his cat had been fed to a rabid Hippogriff. He stared at his head of house with a mixture of shocked disbelief and very quickly red-faced anger.

\"Now, now, Severus, my boy, none of that\" Dumbledore said softly as he noticed his Potion Master making ready to flee the room in the face of such blatant joy at his misfortune. The older man placed a hand on his shoulder, the students would assume that it was to give support. \"Things will get better, I promise.\"

It was surely not to keep the formidable Head of Slytherin from running like a rabbit and hiding in his dungeons.

Then the venerable wizard turned back to the students, a very disappointed look in his eyes. With a slight shake of his head, he caused the entire student body to quiet themselves, many a face red with shame. \"I am very disappointed in all of you. This really is not a joking matter. The potion can have some very serious complications. There is a very real danger to the lives of Professor Snape and the children. He will be somewhat physically frail for a time, and his magic could also be adversely affected later in the pregnancy. I will need all of you to watch out for Professor Snape.\" The black haired man cringed at the thought of being \'watched\' by his students.

\"There is something else. This is a bit awkward, but because of circumstances beyond our control, Professor Snape must marry in order to continue his employment at Hogwarts. It seems that there is a rather archaic rule about unwed Professors having children in the teachers\' contracts. After some thought it has been decided that Remus Lupin will marry him. Since he is the father, this seemed the ideal solution. They both want it known that this will be a marriage on paper only, to be dissolved after the children are born.\" It became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

Harry Potter looked like he had swallowed a dung bomb. Remus was marrying \'SNAPE?\'

Professor Severus \'The Greasy Git\' Snape being miserable was one thing. Professor Snape married to Remus and making him miserable as well was something else altogether.

In the ensuing chaos, no one noticed that Draco Malfoy was no longer at the Slytherin table.


tbc