Of Days and Ends
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Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Snape/Hermione
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Category:
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Snape/Hermione
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
43
Views:
35,976
Reviews:
333
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
3
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters, plot, etc. from the books or movies. I also do not own the AdultFanFiction.net site. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Snakes in the Grass
Chapter 42—Snakes in the Grass
Ginny refused to sleep in the room with Hermione. She was absolutely terrified of the cobra. Snape got a kick out of hissing at her behind Hermione’s back as they sat at the dinner table or flicking his tongue at her with an intense look as Hermione climbed the stairs with a shrug. “He’s not going to hurt you, Ginny!”
Hermione slept like the dead that night, using Snape as a pillow. He, however, stayed wide awake. Around two in the morning, he was grateful that he kept watch when a male figure entered the room and surveyed Hermione through the darkness. Whoever it was, knew there was a snake in the room, but didn’t know if said reptile was asleep. He must have decided that he was sleeping though, because he approached in near silence. The light pats of his toes on the carpeting were amplified in the suppressive stillness of the wee morning hours.
The figure stood over Hermione for a long while, staring down at her before leaning over the glass of water on her bedside table and tilting a tiny vial with a few drops of red liquid over it. Snape waited patiently until the man had expended the last of the Abortio Infecundus Potente into her cup before he carefully unfurled the top half of his body, rising over the figure with the eerie pose of a snake prepared to strike.
The man capped the empty vial and stood face to face with Snape. Unfortunately, he had thought to use a face shielding spell on himself, so Snape couldn’t see who the culprit was, but his vehement hiss and lightning fast bite pumped 500 milligrams of neurotoxins into his blood stream before the man had time to do little more than jump back with a high-pitched scream. It was a shame Snape missed his mark on the man’s jugular when he jumped back. He only managed to sink his fangs into the man’s shoulder.
A split second later, Hermione snapped awake and held her wand aloft at the intruder through the darkness and blinked her eyes hard.
The man immediately apparated away.
“What was that?” She asked.
Snape shifted form and used his wand to lock and ward the door. “A Death Eater.”
She was quiet for a long moment and he watched her face for a reaction. She didn’t seem to have heard him. She just blinked.
“Did you hear me?”
“Huh? What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, a Death Eater. He comes in most nights.”
Snape’s brows creased inwards. “Pardon?”
“I’ve been warding the door every night, but only to distract him. He pours that poison in my cup every night.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shrugged and lay back down. “It’s simple, really.”
He sat by her still form for a while before he proffered a large, stoppered flask of water from his robes. “I think I should put this on the bedstand for you before we sleep.” Hermione nodded and he lay down in the tiny space behind her, spooning her and kissing her neck. “That was a stupid risk.” He murmured.
“What?” She asked.
“Leaving yourself vulnerable like that night after night.”
“I never drank it in the morning.”
“He could have just killed you.”
“That’s not a part of Voldemort’s orders.”
Snape nodded. “It will be now.”
Hermione grabbed his arm and stroked the length of it. “Why didn’t he just do it tonight? It has to be abundantly obvious that you are my snake.”
“I don’t know.”
They fell silent and Snape began to let his eyelids droop. Hermione on the other hand was wide awake and her mind was racing with questions. “Tell me,” she started as she rolled over and his eyes snapped open, “How did you do it?”
“Do what?” She was irritating him.
She narrowed her eyes. “You were dead, Severus.”
“Only for a moment.”
“It’s not funny.”
He sighed, “No, I don’t suppose it is, but I’m tired, and if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Severus, I can’t sleep.”
“Listen, witch, I can’t explain it even to myself. I wanted to live, so Albus told me it was okay to go back.”
“Al—who Professor Dumbledore!”
“Shush! I didn’t put a silencing spell on the room.”
Hermione sat up. “Tell me more!”
“Lay down, Hermione. I won’t tell you anything else. We both need sleep, and you definitely don’t need any excitement.”
Hermione pouted and turned away from him again. When he wound his arms around her waist she wanted to pull away, but refrained. This was the bodily contact she had craved for months, and though she tried to resist the pull of sleep, it quickly overtook her.
She woke in the morning to a strong pull across her waist that turned her onto her back. Her pregnant belly put an uncomfortable pressure across her front. She struggled to open her eyes, but she was still half asleep. A sleek muscular appendage lay heavily on her belly as the fetus kicked.
When she was finally able to open her eyes, she jumped at the sight of the large cobra across her belly before her mind caught up. Snape had changed while she slept and he appeared to be relishing in the feeling of their child’s morning exercise.
“H-how long have you been awake?” She didn’t expect him to answer, and quickly continued, “I need to leave a basket for Harry and Ron today to see how they are. Do you mind?”
Snape’s serpentine head moved first left, then right.
“Good.” She stood, stripping her nightgown in one smooth movement, walking around the room in her pink panties and a matching, lacy bra. “I also need to see if my mum and dad’re awake. Will you stay to watch over them?”
Snape thought carefully about that. Hermione needed to pass information to Harry and Ron, but her parents would need more protection as they moved around the Order thoughout the day. He had to stay, and, unfortunately, she had to go. His serpentine head nodded slowly.
“Thank you.” She looked at him seriously before turning to leave the room.
Snape slithered quickly behind her, his long, lean body sliding silently along the ground. When they reached the dining room, Tonks and Remus smiled at Hermione. Her parents sat across from them at the table with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley at the heads of the table, regaling them with tales of Hermione’s baby years. Snape slid around Mr. Granger’s shoulders though it felt odd to do so. Mr. Granger laughed and pat Snape’s firm side.
“I feel like Tarzan!”
Mrs. Granger laughed, though a little nervously.
“Mum, Dad, I’m leaving headquarters for a while and I’m leaving you in his care.” The emphasis she put on “his” made her mother’s eyes widen with recognition. “Now you must be very careful and never leave his sight. Understand?”
“Yes, dear.” Hermione turned to leave, barely caring to register the astonished look on her parents’ faces, “Oh, Hermione!” Her mother exclaimed, “What are we to call him? I mean to say, have you named it yet?”
She thought quickly. “Amicus Basillicus.”
Snape’s head rose from her father’s shoulder and he hissed with indignation.
“I think he likes it.” Mr. Granger said. “That’s like a roar in the snake world, isn’t it?”
Hermione smirked at Snape, “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Amicus Basillicus...” Her mother repeated, “Can I call him Abe?”
Snape’s head whirled around so quickly that Hermione shook her head. “No, that probably won’t be for the best.”
“Well, the name is just so long!”
“I’ll call him Amicus, Elaine.” Her father explained.
“Yes, I suppose that’ll do.”
Remus quite good-naturedly asked, “How long have you had a snake familiar, Hermione?”
She immediately realized that Tonks did not voice her suspicions to her husband. “Oh, uhm...”
Her mother spared her from answering immediately, “What’s a familiar?”
“It’s essentially a wizard’s pet.” Tonks answered quietly, and Hermione met her cool, level gaze.
“Not long.” She answered. “About a year?” She stroked gently under Snape’s chin.
“A year!”
“Yes. That’s about right, isn’t it?” She spoke directly to Snape like she would often do with Crookshanks.
He kept his head carefully still. They were meant to pretend that he was a real snake.
She sighed and looked over those gathered for an early breakfast, her eyes resting on Tonks for a moment longer than the rest. “He has stood guard over my parents the entire time, and has proven to be unwaveringly dedicated to their well-being.” She bent and kissed the top of his head before turning to her mother and father and doing the same. “I have to get going.”
She spent the remainder of her time at Headquarters methodically working on assembling the strongest-smelling breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods she could. Mrs. Weasley’s sudden-death-chicken soup was placed inside a new cooking cauldron. She was sure they would need a new cauldron by now and they couldn’t exactly shop for one either. She picked up a couple jugs of butterbeer that Mrs. Weasley had a stasis charm on and added it to the basket. A full turkey and two loaves of cool bread were balanced precariously beside a small jar of chocolate biscuits. Before she left, she scribbled a shopping list of the things she took and placed it in front of Mrs. Weasley before heading for the door.
“Wait! Wait! Where are you going?”
Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but Mr. Weasley stopped her. “Calm down, Molly. Don’t stress her. You know what she has to do.”
“Stress—no, no, of course not! Wait! They’ll need some of these!” She opened the pantry door and muttered a spell and where a very sensible rack of spices and herbs once sat, laid a multitude of candies.
“My g—!”
“Here you go, dear!” She scooped an armful up and magically rearranged the entire basket to fit everything perfectly before adding a charm to make it hover in the air and a charm to make it balance perfectly.
“Mrs. Weasley!” Hermione didn’t know what else to say.
Mrs. Weasley held up a hand. “My son is out there. You tell him his mummy loves him!”
Hermione nodded silently. As she walked to the front door, she pulled the bag of Dark location seekers out of her pocket and apparated away.
When her feet finally found purchase on the ground, she swayed on the spot for a couple of seconds as she fought back the urge to vomit and moan. Hermione’s stomach was clenching and the baby was kicking with distinct unhappiness.
She looked around in awe. She was standing in the Dursleys’ back yard. It had obviously been left in complete disrepair as ivy climbed the walls and grass grew in the flowerbeds. The begonias were beginning to wilt and the walkway was littered with the leaves of the tree that gave shade to the house, but now the shade seemed sinister and unfriendly.
She tightened her hold on her wand and licked her lips nervously as she approached the house. The front door was cracked open and she hesitated with her hand hovering over the wavy, brass handle. She couldn’t sense any wards, but something did not quite feel right. Contributing to that feeling was a large brown, amorphic stain just outside the front door. She had a sickening feeling that it might be blood and feared what she would see.
Her hand touched the cool metal and she took a deep breath, standing against the outside wall as she shoved the door open. A double-edged axe swung down and through the doorway. She shrieked and whirled so her back was pressed flat to the outside wall.
Above her, a gritty sound came from the window on the second floor and she gripped her wand tightly. She pressed her back into the wall as though trying to disappear.
“Whoever you are, you had better speak now or I’ll blast your bloody head off!”
She felt as though the air was knocked out of her lungs as she recognized Ron’s voice. Somehow, she managed to gasp, “Hermione! It’s me, Hermione!”
“‘Ermione!” Ron stuck his head out of the window to see better. “How do we know it’s you?”
She sank down to the ground, grabbing the basket and drawing it near to her. “Your mum sent me with some chocolates!” She grabbed one and tossed it towards the window and when it bounced off the wall just below the windowsill and began to fall to the ground, Ron perfomed a summoning charm and the chocolate flew back up to the window where she could hear some muffled discussion.
She breathed heavily in anticipation and when the boys finally came to a decision, Harry called. “Stick to the right wall, follow it all the way through to the stairs. Skip the sixth step and wait ten seconds before stepping onto the landing. When you get to the top of the stairs throw down your wand and we’ll come to you. Got it?”
“Uh...” She couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. “stick to the walls—”
“The right walls!”
“Right walls, skip the sixth step and wait at the landing—”
“BEFORE THE LANDING!”
“Before the landing. Then go to the top and wait after I put my wand down?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Her heart began to pound as she struggled to find a comfortable way to lift their basket of food into her arms again and carefully made her way into the house. It was dark and she kept her back pressed firmly against the wall as she shuffled though the house.
“Oh, yeah, Hermione!”
She froze in place.
“I almost forgot. Avoid the windows.”
She stood just to the left of a window, but she didn’t understand how to get past. “What?”
“Avoid the windows.”
She looked all around her. She didn’t know how she would both avoid the window and stick to the right wall. “How?”
Ron gave an exasperated sigh. “Crawl under the window! Bloody hell!”
She scowled. It seemed unfair that they were being so impatient with her lack of understanding when she had had to deal with their slow minds for years. “Dunderheads...” She mumbled as she put the basket on the floor and shoved it to the opposite side of the window with her foot. Then, as she got down on her hands and knees to crawl forward, she found that her belly was very uncomfortable to work around. She finally stood straight on the other side of the window and gasped for breath. There were at least two more windows!
When she finally reached the stairs she could hear Ron and Harry’s voices in the kitchen. “Wait, how did you guys get down here without passing me?”
She began to turn to head in that direction when Harry and Ron both shouted, “NO!”
“What the—”
“Just come up the stairs, Hermione!” Ron called. That’s a trap for the Death Eaters.
“Okay, okay...” She climbed the steps, carefully avoiding the sixth step and waiting on the last step for ten seconds. Knowing that they must have set a trap on the landing didn’t stop her from screaming when the far right wall moved forward and slammed against the left wall. “HOLY FUCK!” She couldn’t imagine where they would get these ideas! She looked closer at the wall, and found that what she had originally perceived to be a Rorschach inspired wallpaper on the wall must be the blood left by someone who got crushed between the walls.
“You can come up now, Hermione. The rest is safe.”
She violently shook her head, trembling so violently that her teeth chattered and a churning pain was beginning to develope in that hemisphere that alerted her to going into labor.
“Hermione?” It was Harry and he was leaning over the banister, so close that if they each extended their arms she might be able to brush against his fingertips.
Tears of fear rolled down her cheeks and she felt paralyzed on the step. The basket began to grow heavy in her arms.
“Hermione?” Ron came to the banister, holding his wand at the ready.
She could hear the basket cracking under her death-grip. “I-I c-can’t!” She cried. Her fear was making the pain in her abdomen more severe and she struggled to breathe evenly.
“Hermione, everything’s okay from here.” Ron said softly.
She finally looked up. “Okay, okay, okay...” She heaved several deep breaths before climbing the rest of the stairs at as close to a sprint as she could manage with a belly and a large basket of food. Ron and Harry’s wands levelled at her as she collapsed onto her knees.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked as Ron used his wand to send the basket of food ahead to the room. They each took one of her arms and helped her walk, hunched over, into the room.
“Here, Hermione, let me get your cloak.” Ron said, taking the black fabic from around her shoulders and revealing her obviously pregnant frame.
“Bloody hell!” Both boys said as she stood up straight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Okay, firstly, I am sorry for this long, long, long gap in updating. I thought about the story daily, but I had school to deal with... but wait! There’s actually more to it than that.
I wrote five chapters ahead of this chapter, however, two weeks into last semester, I was using the computer lab at the University and walked away in a rush to get to my next class... and. Left. The. Flashdrive. THERE. I was crushed when I found out that someone proceeded to steal it. I cried on and off through the week. I lost sooooooooo much work! So much work!
Seriously, I cannot even begin to tell you how crushed I was. Luckily for me, I still had one and two-thirds of a chapter on my backup harddrive ahead of my last post. That said, the little voice in my head was so pissed with me that it packed up its notes and ideas and left me. I was so depressed, but lo and behold, it has returned to comfort me and start again! It may never forgive me, but I am truly nothing without it, so please be oh so nice and leave it reviews and encouragement.
Now, I absolutely must thank all of you who have hung in there with me, including my top reviewers:
1-- catysmom
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! And Sorry, sorry, so sorry!
Ginny refused to sleep in the room with Hermione. She was absolutely terrified of the cobra. Snape got a kick out of hissing at her behind Hermione’s back as they sat at the dinner table or flicking his tongue at her with an intense look as Hermione climbed the stairs with a shrug. “He’s not going to hurt you, Ginny!”
Hermione slept like the dead that night, using Snape as a pillow. He, however, stayed wide awake. Around two in the morning, he was grateful that he kept watch when a male figure entered the room and surveyed Hermione through the darkness. Whoever it was, knew there was a snake in the room, but didn’t know if said reptile was asleep. He must have decided that he was sleeping though, because he approached in near silence. The light pats of his toes on the carpeting were amplified in the suppressive stillness of the wee morning hours.
The figure stood over Hermione for a long while, staring down at her before leaning over the glass of water on her bedside table and tilting a tiny vial with a few drops of red liquid over it. Snape waited patiently until the man had expended the last of the Abortio Infecundus Potente into her cup before he carefully unfurled the top half of his body, rising over the figure with the eerie pose of a snake prepared to strike.
The man capped the empty vial and stood face to face with Snape. Unfortunately, he had thought to use a face shielding spell on himself, so Snape couldn’t see who the culprit was, but his vehement hiss and lightning fast bite pumped 500 milligrams of neurotoxins into his blood stream before the man had time to do little more than jump back with a high-pitched scream. It was a shame Snape missed his mark on the man’s jugular when he jumped back. He only managed to sink his fangs into the man’s shoulder.
A split second later, Hermione snapped awake and held her wand aloft at the intruder through the darkness and blinked her eyes hard.
The man immediately apparated away.
“What was that?” She asked.
Snape shifted form and used his wand to lock and ward the door. “A Death Eater.”
She was quiet for a long moment and he watched her face for a reaction. She didn’t seem to have heard him. She just blinked.
“Did you hear me?”
“Huh? What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, a Death Eater. He comes in most nights.”
Snape’s brows creased inwards. “Pardon?”
“I’ve been warding the door every night, but only to distract him. He pours that poison in my cup every night.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shrugged and lay back down. “It’s simple, really.”
He sat by her still form for a while before he proffered a large, stoppered flask of water from his robes. “I think I should put this on the bedstand for you before we sleep.” Hermione nodded and he lay down in the tiny space behind her, spooning her and kissing her neck. “That was a stupid risk.” He murmured.
“What?” She asked.
“Leaving yourself vulnerable like that night after night.”
“I never drank it in the morning.”
“He could have just killed you.”
“That’s not a part of Voldemort’s orders.”
Snape nodded. “It will be now.”
Hermione grabbed his arm and stroked the length of it. “Why didn’t he just do it tonight? It has to be abundantly obvious that you are my snake.”
“I don’t know.”
They fell silent and Snape began to let his eyelids droop. Hermione on the other hand was wide awake and her mind was racing with questions. “Tell me,” she started as she rolled over and his eyes snapped open, “How did you do it?”
“Do what?” She was irritating him.
She narrowed her eyes. “You were dead, Severus.”
“Only for a moment.”
“It’s not funny.”
He sighed, “No, I don’t suppose it is, but I’m tired, and if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Severus, I can’t sleep.”
“Listen, witch, I can’t explain it even to myself. I wanted to live, so Albus told me it was okay to go back.”
“Al—who Professor Dumbledore!”
“Shush! I didn’t put a silencing spell on the room.”
Hermione sat up. “Tell me more!”
“Lay down, Hermione. I won’t tell you anything else. We both need sleep, and you definitely don’t need any excitement.”
Hermione pouted and turned away from him again. When he wound his arms around her waist she wanted to pull away, but refrained. This was the bodily contact she had craved for months, and though she tried to resist the pull of sleep, it quickly overtook her.
She woke in the morning to a strong pull across her waist that turned her onto her back. Her pregnant belly put an uncomfortable pressure across her front. She struggled to open her eyes, but she was still half asleep. A sleek muscular appendage lay heavily on her belly as the fetus kicked.
When she was finally able to open her eyes, she jumped at the sight of the large cobra across her belly before her mind caught up. Snape had changed while she slept and he appeared to be relishing in the feeling of their child’s morning exercise.
“H-how long have you been awake?” She didn’t expect him to answer, and quickly continued, “I need to leave a basket for Harry and Ron today to see how they are. Do you mind?”
Snape’s serpentine head moved first left, then right.
“Good.” She stood, stripping her nightgown in one smooth movement, walking around the room in her pink panties and a matching, lacy bra. “I also need to see if my mum and dad’re awake. Will you stay to watch over them?”
Snape thought carefully about that. Hermione needed to pass information to Harry and Ron, but her parents would need more protection as they moved around the Order thoughout the day. He had to stay, and, unfortunately, she had to go. His serpentine head nodded slowly.
“Thank you.” She looked at him seriously before turning to leave the room.
Snape slithered quickly behind her, his long, lean body sliding silently along the ground. When they reached the dining room, Tonks and Remus smiled at Hermione. Her parents sat across from them at the table with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley at the heads of the table, regaling them with tales of Hermione’s baby years. Snape slid around Mr. Granger’s shoulders though it felt odd to do so. Mr. Granger laughed and pat Snape’s firm side.
“I feel like Tarzan!”
Mrs. Granger laughed, though a little nervously.
“Mum, Dad, I’m leaving headquarters for a while and I’m leaving you in his care.” The emphasis she put on “his” made her mother’s eyes widen with recognition. “Now you must be very careful and never leave his sight. Understand?”
“Yes, dear.” Hermione turned to leave, barely caring to register the astonished look on her parents’ faces, “Oh, Hermione!” Her mother exclaimed, “What are we to call him? I mean to say, have you named it yet?”
She thought quickly. “Amicus Basillicus.”
Snape’s head rose from her father’s shoulder and he hissed with indignation.
“I think he likes it.” Mr. Granger said. “That’s like a roar in the snake world, isn’t it?”
Hermione smirked at Snape, “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Amicus Basillicus...” Her mother repeated, “Can I call him Abe?”
Snape’s head whirled around so quickly that Hermione shook her head. “No, that probably won’t be for the best.”
“Well, the name is just so long!”
“I’ll call him Amicus, Elaine.” Her father explained.
“Yes, I suppose that’ll do.”
Remus quite good-naturedly asked, “How long have you had a snake familiar, Hermione?”
She immediately realized that Tonks did not voice her suspicions to her husband. “Oh, uhm...”
Her mother spared her from answering immediately, “What’s a familiar?”
“It’s essentially a wizard’s pet.” Tonks answered quietly, and Hermione met her cool, level gaze.
“Not long.” She answered. “About a year?” She stroked gently under Snape’s chin.
“A year!”
“Yes. That’s about right, isn’t it?” She spoke directly to Snape like she would often do with Crookshanks.
He kept his head carefully still. They were meant to pretend that he was a real snake.
She sighed and looked over those gathered for an early breakfast, her eyes resting on Tonks for a moment longer than the rest. “He has stood guard over my parents the entire time, and has proven to be unwaveringly dedicated to their well-being.” She bent and kissed the top of his head before turning to her mother and father and doing the same. “I have to get going.”
She spent the remainder of her time at Headquarters methodically working on assembling the strongest-smelling breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods she could. Mrs. Weasley’s sudden-death-chicken soup was placed inside a new cooking cauldron. She was sure they would need a new cauldron by now and they couldn’t exactly shop for one either. She picked up a couple jugs of butterbeer that Mrs. Weasley had a stasis charm on and added it to the basket. A full turkey and two loaves of cool bread were balanced precariously beside a small jar of chocolate biscuits. Before she left, she scribbled a shopping list of the things she took and placed it in front of Mrs. Weasley before heading for the door.
“Wait! Wait! Where are you going?”
Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but Mr. Weasley stopped her. “Calm down, Molly. Don’t stress her. You know what she has to do.”
“Stress—no, no, of course not! Wait! They’ll need some of these!” She opened the pantry door and muttered a spell and where a very sensible rack of spices and herbs once sat, laid a multitude of candies.
“My g—!”
“Here you go, dear!” She scooped an armful up and magically rearranged the entire basket to fit everything perfectly before adding a charm to make it hover in the air and a charm to make it balance perfectly.
“Mrs. Weasley!” Hermione didn’t know what else to say.
Mrs. Weasley held up a hand. “My son is out there. You tell him his mummy loves him!”
Hermione nodded silently. As she walked to the front door, she pulled the bag of Dark location seekers out of her pocket and apparated away.
When her feet finally found purchase on the ground, she swayed on the spot for a couple of seconds as she fought back the urge to vomit and moan. Hermione’s stomach was clenching and the baby was kicking with distinct unhappiness.
She looked around in awe. She was standing in the Dursleys’ back yard. It had obviously been left in complete disrepair as ivy climbed the walls and grass grew in the flowerbeds. The begonias were beginning to wilt and the walkway was littered with the leaves of the tree that gave shade to the house, but now the shade seemed sinister and unfriendly.
She tightened her hold on her wand and licked her lips nervously as she approached the house. The front door was cracked open and she hesitated with her hand hovering over the wavy, brass handle. She couldn’t sense any wards, but something did not quite feel right. Contributing to that feeling was a large brown, amorphic stain just outside the front door. She had a sickening feeling that it might be blood and feared what she would see.
Her hand touched the cool metal and she took a deep breath, standing against the outside wall as she shoved the door open. A double-edged axe swung down and through the doorway. She shrieked and whirled so her back was pressed flat to the outside wall.
Above her, a gritty sound came from the window on the second floor and she gripped her wand tightly. She pressed her back into the wall as though trying to disappear.
“Whoever you are, you had better speak now or I’ll blast your bloody head off!”
She felt as though the air was knocked out of her lungs as she recognized Ron’s voice. Somehow, she managed to gasp, “Hermione! It’s me, Hermione!”
“‘Ermione!” Ron stuck his head out of the window to see better. “How do we know it’s you?”
She sank down to the ground, grabbing the basket and drawing it near to her. “Your mum sent me with some chocolates!” She grabbed one and tossed it towards the window and when it bounced off the wall just below the windowsill and began to fall to the ground, Ron perfomed a summoning charm and the chocolate flew back up to the window where she could hear some muffled discussion.
She breathed heavily in anticipation and when the boys finally came to a decision, Harry called. “Stick to the right wall, follow it all the way through to the stairs. Skip the sixth step and wait ten seconds before stepping onto the landing. When you get to the top of the stairs throw down your wand and we’ll come to you. Got it?”
“Uh...” She couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. “stick to the walls—”
“The right walls!”
“Right walls, skip the sixth step and wait at the landing—”
“BEFORE THE LANDING!”
“Before the landing. Then go to the top and wait after I put my wand down?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Her heart began to pound as she struggled to find a comfortable way to lift their basket of food into her arms again and carefully made her way into the house. It was dark and she kept her back pressed firmly against the wall as she shuffled though the house.
“Oh, yeah, Hermione!”
She froze in place.
“I almost forgot. Avoid the windows.”
She stood just to the left of a window, but she didn’t understand how to get past. “What?”
“Avoid the windows.”
She looked all around her. She didn’t know how she would both avoid the window and stick to the right wall. “How?”
Ron gave an exasperated sigh. “Crawl under the window! Bloody hell!”
She scowled. It seemed unfair that they were being so impatient with her lack of understanding when she had had to deal with their slow minds for years. “Dunderheads...” She mumbled as she put the basket on the floor and shoved it to the opposite side of the window with her foot. Then, as she got down on her hands and knees to crawl forward, she found that her belly was very uncomfortable to work around. She finally stood straight on the other side of the window and gasped for breath. There were at least two more windows!
When she finally reached the stairs she could hear Ron and Harry’s voices in the kitchen. “Wait, how did you guys get down here without passing me?”
She began to turn to head in that direction when Harry and Ron both shouted, “NO!”
“What the—”
“Just come up the stairs, Hermione!” Ron called. That’s a trap for the Death Eaters.
“Okay, okay...” She climbed the steps, carefully avoiding the sixth step and waiting on the last step for ten seconds. Knowing that they must have set a trap on the landing didn’t stop her from screaming when the far right wall moved forward and slammed against the left wall. “HOLY FUCK!” She couldn’t imagine where they would get these ideas! She looked closer at the wall, and found that what she had originally perceived to be a Rorschach inspired wallpaper on the wall must be the blood left by someone who got crushed between the walls.
“You can come up now, Hermione. The rest is safe.”
She violently shook her head, trembling so violently that her teeth chattered and a churning pain was beginning to develope in that hemisphere that alerted her to going into labor.
“Hermione?” It was Harry and he was leaning over the banister, so close that if they each extended their arms she might be able to brush against his fingertips.
Tears of fear rolled down her cheeks and she felt paralyzed on the step. The basket began to grow heavy in her arms.
“Hermione?” Ron came to the banister, holding his wand at the ready.
She could hear the basket cracking under her death-grip. “I-I c-can’t!” She cried. Her fear was making the pain in her abdomen more severe and she struggled to breathe evenly.
“Hermione, everything’s okay from here.” Ron said softly.
She finally looked up. “Okay, okay, okay...” She heaved several deep breaths before climbing the rest of the stairs at as close to a sprint as she could manage with a belly and a large basket of food. Ron and Harry’s wands levelled at her as she collapsed onto her knees.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked as Ron used his wand to send the basket of food ahead to the room. They each took one of her arms and helped her walk, hunched over, into the room.
“Here, Hermione, let me get your cloak.” Ron said, taking the black fabic from around her shoulders and revealing her obviously pregnant frame.
“Bloody hell!” Both boys said as she stood up straight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Okay, firstly, I am sorry for this long, long, long gap in updating. I thought about the story daily, but I had school to deal with... but wait! There’s actually more to it than that.
I wrote five chapters ahead of this chapter, however, two weeks into last semester, I was using the computer lab at the University and walked away in a rush to get to my next class... and. Left. The. Flashdrive. THERE. I was crushed when I found out that someone proceeded to steal it. I cried on and off through the week. I lost sooooooooo much work! So much work!
Seriously, I cannot even begin to tell you how crushed I was. Luckily for me, I still had one and two-thirds of a chapter on my backup harddrive ahead of my last post. That said, the little voice in my head was so pissed with me that it packed up its notes and ideas and left me. I was so depressed, but lo and behold, it has returned to comfort me and start again! It may never forgive me, but I am truly nothing without it, so please be oh so nice and leave it reviews and encouragement.
Now, I absolutely must thank all of you who have hung in there with me, including my top reviewers:
1-- catysmom
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Also, everybody! Let’s give a hearty round of applause for our newest reviewers:
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Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! And Sorry, sorry, so sorry!