An Englishman’s Castle

An Englishman’s Castle: Baby Talk



“Good morning Headmistress,” Hermione smiled as she took her seat at the end of the staff table, “did you sleep well?”

“Very well, thank you,” McGonagall replied, accepting the marmalade Pomona Sprout passed her and spooning a little onto her toast, “are you doing anything interesting today?”

“Well, Professor Snape is a little busy preparing his quarters so my research’s been suspended indefinitely,” Hermione replied with a frown, “so, no, nothing of any value.”

“It’s for the good of the magical world, Hermione,” she was reprimanded.

“So is the cooling system I’m developing!” she was cross now, despite her mantra-chanting earlier, “it’ll revolutionize the current medical structure in place for those patients between trauma and -”

Sprout, her round face serious beneath a grubby hat, lent around the headmistress and regarded Hermione for a moment before saying:

“But children are the future, dear, you’ll understand that someday.”

Down the table a row of sage and seasoned witches nodded in agreement; before Hermione could retort to their wisdom Minerva began the traditional questioning of lesson plans and miscreants and the conversation glided smoothly onwards, leaving in its wake a young witch hoping that her porridge would somehow end up on Minerva’s head and could be blamed on the student body.

“Madame Apprentice,” a student cautiously approached the table, crooked green tie haphazardly wound around his neck, “Professor Snape wants you.”

“Thank you,” Hermione got to her feet so suddenly that she knocked the milk jug over Poppy Promfrey’s bowl of porridge, “sorry – please excuse me – goodbye.”

She almost ran for the double doors, so eager to get away from the urge to throttle a witch she had always considered a friend. The student mooched back to his seat and set into a bacon sandwich and glass of pumpkin juice as she whirled down to the dungeons.

“Did it work?” she squealed, throwing open the heavy door to the laboratory.

“Stoopid thuckers!” a high pitched, slightly nasal voice retorted, “stoopid, idiothic thools!”

“From the mouths of babes,” Snape smirked so widely his face was almost twisted into a grin, “and innocents.”

“Hmm, we might have to give him something to shut him up,” Hermione perched on a tall stool and surveyed the small child sitting on the work bench.

The formerly straight hair of her contemporary had shrunk into a shower of fat curls that covered his head, and he was glaring through enormous grey eyes capped with lashes so long they almost appeared too heavy for his eyelids. Dressed in nothing but skin so luminous it seemed to glow and with his podgy hands clasped over his privates, Draco Malfoy was glowering.

“Don’t you dare,” he whined, “-no!”

But it was too late, as Snape had already pushed him onto his back, pinned his baby arms firmly on his chest, and was tipping a vial of dark purple liquid down his throat as Malfoy prepared to scream. All that emitted from his mouth was a mewling whimper that tapered away to nothing, despite that frantic shouting the child appeared to be performing. Hermione grinned.

“Perfect. I suppose I should find him some clothes.”

“Oh, there’s no hurry. I think the humiliation’s good for him really.”

“Definitely,” she replied, drawing a blue handkerchief out of her pocket and laying it on the surface, “but I’ll be mentally scarred for life if I have to see his you-know-what.”

Flicking and tapping her wand in the air over the material, Hermione focused intently as it drew itself out, stretching diagonally and then width-wise to form a long rectangle. With a quick half-circle incantation and a muttered spell the fabric folded itself up around Malfoy’s bare bottom and tucked the end into its waistband to form an origami nappy.

Draco tugged his hands free from the confinement within the nappy with an almighty scowl.

“You’d better take him with you to see McGonagall now,” Hermione handed him a neatly folded piece of parchment as she spoke; “she’s summoned you for after breakfast.”

Snape turned the note over in his hands, noting the ripped side and the name inscribed onto the front.

“Did you open this?” he asked; voice a low growl in the back of his throat.

“Yes,” she replied, trying to wrestle the toddler into a long yellow t-shirt, “I thought it would be important.”

She found herself with the bench pressing coldly into her lower back and Snape, arm on either side of her body, fencing her in. His pale face was highlighted by two circles of electric pink splashed onto his cheeks, and his lips were pressed tightly together.

“That was my mail,” he snapped, leaning over her so that they were close enough for her vision to be beginning to sway a little, “and it is mine to read and, more importantly, to open.”

Her heart was pumping adrenaline through her veins; it was soaring through her arteries and circling her head until she felt almost dizzy. He was close enough for her to see each of his dark eyelashes wobbling in her sight.

“Sorry, sorry,” she stammered, “I didn’t think.”

“Don’t make the mistake, Granger, of thinking that by forming this partnership we have reached the level of companionship that merits leafing through someone else’s private correspondence.”

“But all it is, is a time!” she countered, breath tightening in her lungs.

“But it might not have been,” he replied, a little sneer twisting his lips, “what if it had been something more – personal? A description of intimate activities or a confession of carnal knowledge?”

Turning quickly he picked up Draco and swept out of the lab, leaving her grasping the workbench while her wobbly legs steadied.

“Eugh,” she replied after a moment, “that’s revolting.”

But the room was empty and all she could think about was Snape’s carnal knowledge.



-*-



“Headmistress McGonagall?” Snape called out when he reached the top of the spiral staircase, “I do not have the use of a hand with which to open your door, so you will have to lever yourself from that comfortable chair --”

The Headmistress looked rather annoyed as she opened the heavy door and glared at the Potion’s Professor. There was a ginger snap in her hand and a cup of tea steaming on the desk.

“I would offer you a cup,” she snapped with ice creeping over the heavily enunciated syllables, “but I won’t waste my tea-leaves on you. The same goes for the biscuits.”

“That’s hardly pleasant,” Snape dropped the small child onto the sofa and leant against the fireplace, “I thought we had reached a mutually acceptable level of pleasantries that involved biscuits and such like.”

“We had, until you decided to play me for a fool.”

“A fool? Never.”

McGonagall looked as if she was about to leap over the back of the sofa and rip his throat out with her bare teeth as she fetched a large book and opened it to the marked page.

“Nuutalas confirmatus propanolisala,” she intoned, giving the toddler a sharp tap on the stomach with her wand.

The child, who until then had been waving his fat arms around in large circles, looked at her incredulously and burst forth into wails worthy of a banshee as the Headmistress and Snape clapped their hands over their ears in sudden pain.

“Take him away,” the witch finally managed to shout over the inhuman racket, “and shut him up!”

“This is your bloody fault,” the wizard retorted, “I’m half tempted to leave it here.”

“It’s a child not an it, Snape! Now remove yourselves from my office. I’m busy.”

“Busy my arse.”

Draco Malfoy was carried from the room with his ears pulsing red from the strength of his shouts, and held at arm’s distance until they reached the lower levels of the school, whereupon Snape stuffed the now hiccuping boy under his arm and strode towards his classroom and the apprentice he was about to pawn the infant off on.

“Granger,” he yelped when he saw her, “take this child immediately. I have lessons to teach, and I expect all the passionflower to be correctly diced and measured by twelve.”

Bewildered, her arms closed around Malfoy as Snape hurtled into his classroom with a roar of points taken from Hufflepuff. She was still staring after the potions’ Master in confusion when Malfoy, apparently deciding to take advantage of his proximity, seized one of her breasts and rolled it between his baby hands.

“Ah!” she screamed, almost dropping him, “you disgusting pervert!”

The angelic child chortled.