Custody Battle

A/N: I’m sorry it’s taken so long to update, but this was a very sticky chapter and it was giving me the most difficult of times. Hope it is to your liking.


The interior of the Hogshead had changed precious little as Severus took a dingy table in the far back corner. Aberforth had come over to him, and offered him a glass, but he’d merely glared at the aging man and shaken his head. He and Albus were two of a kind, the rotten spy-like kind that you hated because they meddled. And he’d still not forgiven the grizzled old barkeep for hiding his brother after the fateful death.

But his thoughts of that night were torn away when the door swung open and she stepped inside. Her face was only showing the slightest signs of age having passed her over, though with five kids under her belt, he was rather surprised to see that she’d still maintained a rather trim physique. He rose from the table to show her where he’d chosen to sit, though it wouldn’t have mattered as they were the only ones in the pub.

“Professor,” she nodded to him, taking the chair opposite him.

“Mrs. Davonshire,” he said. Both were silent.

Before Aberforth could reach the table, Severus had waved his hand up behind him. “Don’t even think about it, old man. And you should tell that meddlesome brother of yours the same.”

“I see nothing has changed since I saw you last,” Hermione waved her wand and two teacups appeared on the table, since it was clear the presence of the bartender would not be occurring.

“Can’t say that I can say the same for you,” his voice was low as he gazed at the tea, bringing the cup to his nose, taking a healthy sniff.

“I’m not going to poison you.”

“I’m surprised…”

“If I had wanted you out of the picture, I could have turned you in back when you— well, back when.” She muttered. Little had changed about Hermione physically, her hair was a bit shorter, but it was still the bushy mess of tangles it had been when he’d yanked her around her flat by it. And she’d been loath to pass that particular trait onto her children. Her face did not show wrinkles, though there were soft purple tinged bags beneath her eyes, and he wondered if she often found herself having sleepless nights.

“You should have.”

“Don’t start that muck again.”

Silence.

“You didn’t think to owl me?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to trouble you.”

“Married Blake quite quickly.”

“I waited two years…” She sipped her teacup. He took a sip from his as well. It was a strong Earl Grey.

“Did you meet him right away?”

She shook her head. “It was about six months after she was born.”

His face seemed careworn to her eyes, and although he did look a bit older, there was not a trace of silver or gray in his long black tresses, and she noted how he’d let them grow some, nearly past his shoulders, and that they looked almost healthy, rather than greasy and lank. The little marks at the corners of his eyes showed the tortured past that dominated his life, but that aside he was looking healthy.

“I just cannot understand why you never thought to tell me.” For the emotional turmoil he was trudging through, Severus found himself to be surprisingly calm.

“I didn’t want to burden you.” She shrugged her shoulders as if giving a reason for not calling an old friend in a while. “It wasn’t planned, and god knows you didn’t want children.” She paused to sip her tea again. “I wasn’t sure I did either, but she came along and I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

The sting in his heart almost made his face fall, but old habits die hard, and Severus kept the wall of stone around his emotional demeanor. He brought his lips to the cup and drank back from it, questions burning on his lips. “And the girl—”

“Caterina, sometimes we call her Cat.”

“She thinks that Blake…well, that he’s—”

“Yes.”

“You told him I was dead?”

Hermione frowned. “Yes, I just thought, given the circumstances, it might have been easier for him to think you were out of the picture completely.”

“Because you intended to keep me out of the picture.”

“Please, Professor—”

“While the title is once again reinstated, considering the circumstances, it’s Severus.”

“Severus,” she nodded. “What I was going to say was I didn’t intend to keep you out of the picture.”

“Well you certainly didn’t intend for me to be in the picture.”

“I didn’t know what you wanted! I’m not Sibyl…” she said, trying not to smile, for all things considered, it was a fairly serious matter.

He snorted, and then took a drink from his nearly empty tea cup. “You could have asked. Somewhere along the line, you did have eleven years in which you could have dropped an owl, dropped by in person, hell dropped her by Hogwarts, and you could have found out what I wanted.”

Again they both fell silent. He was astounded with himself, amazed that he had not yet broken into a fit of boiling rage. He found it completely unfathomable that she hadn’t once bothered to seek him out and mention that he’d sired a child. Though he wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that she’d thought that he wouldn’t want to be burdened with it, or the fact that deep down she believed him to be a horrible man and wanted him to have nothing to do with it.

“What do you plan to do?” she asked suddenly. Her question caught him unprepared. Although he’d taken painstaking measures to seek her out, he hadn’t completely thought about what his plan of action was to be.

A question hit his mind and tongue before he could phrase it more eloquently. “Why give her my surname?”

Hermione’s eyes looked uneasy. “I didn’t have much choice,” she muttered. “When a magical child is born, as their name goes down from birth in that blasted book,” she paused a moment. “If the child’s parents are not married at time of birth, the child is given the mother’s name, unless she is of muggle decent and married to a muggle.” With a sigh she closed her eyes. “Meaning in my case, had I married any other wizard, she could have had my name, it would have changed in the book as soon as I’d married him, but with Blake being a muggle…” she muttered, “And of course, the book just knows these things.”

The book was all well and fine, what he didn’t understand was how she knew these things but before he could pose that question she was rambling again. “I read it all in Hogwarts a History, thinking about school for her, and I honestly hadn’t known that you were back teaching there,” she said. It was true, she hadn’t kept up with him, hadn’t even tried to think about him, let alone contact him after that night.

His patience was growing thin, and his lips were running out of lines to pass amicably between them. It was a fine line to be teetering on, given the circumstances. Just because it had happened in such a violent and forceful manner didn’t mean she had the right to withhold his child from him. “What do you plan on doing?” she asked again.

“Mrs. Davonshire,” he began, steepling his fingers together in front of his face.

“Please, it’s Hermione, I mean…” she sighed. “Oh this is rather a mess.”

“I do suppose in all your clever planning you didn’t figure I’d ever actually find out.”

“That’s not it at all!” she cried in her own defense.

“Then do tell me, Hermione, what exactly is it that you figured upon? Surely someday she would figure out that she looked different from her sisters and brothers for a reason? And surely someday, even if you were feeding her the guised myth that I was dead, you must have thought she might discover that I wasn’t? Unless of course you figured you’d find a way to off me before that day came.”

Her eyes were wide, almost livid. “How dare you! Think that I had intentions of offing you?”

“You might as well have, your husband thinks I’m dead, my daughter thinks she’s another man’s child.” He’d hardly believed the words had come from his mouth. Since hearing about her, he’d not claimed her as anything and then suddenly he was arguing quite passionately as if he’d known her all her life. He cleared his throat. “And it’s clear from your lack of explanation that you had no intentions of introducing her into my life or vice versa.”

“What isn’t there doesn’t need explaining!” she spat, and then quickly covered her mouth.

“Indeed.”

“Severus, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.”

“I believe, Hermione, it came out exactly the way you wanted it to.” He narrowed his eyes at her, calculating gaze passing over her face. It was infuriating to think that she had disregarded him completely. Had he known that he had fathered a child, he could have kept to the background, sent her money to raise the girl, and been sure that he had long since removed himself from Hogwarts by the time she turned eleven. But the brunette witch sitting before him had inadvertently thrust it upon him, leaving him few options in the matter of how to deal with the girl.

“What are you going to say to her when she starts asking questions?” she asked, her voice shaking a bit, though she seemed determined not to break her gaze.

“What am I going to say to her? Or what do you want me to say to her? Mind you, I’ve no intentions of lying for you, Miss Granger.”

“I’m married now and I don’t think—”

“I don’t care if you’re married to Albus himself! I’m not lying for you because you chose to write me out of the picture of this girl’s life before I even knew she existed!”

“If you were so damn concerned about her, you think you would have known about her before now! Christ, Severus, she is eleven!”

He growled, rising from the table. “Oh how mature, Hermione. Don’t even attempt to play that game with me. You kept her from me, you knew I didn’t know, you had no intentions of bothering me with the news you thought I’d reject anyhow!”

“Well you should have thought to check up on me!”

“It wasn’t my responsibility to drop in a few weeks later, have you gone mad, woman?” he spat. “You brought this on yourself! It wasn’t a fancy night! I wasn’t some gentleman caller! I wasn’t—”

“You raped me!” she growled shooting up from the table, and then settled quietly down into her seat, cupping a hand to her mouth and glancing about to see if she’d roused the attentions of Aberforth, who seemed to have wandered to the back.

His black eyes turned murderous as he reached across the table and clamped her wrist tightly in his fist. “And I gave you your chance then to turn me in. You refused. You think eleven years later I’m going to feel an ounce of sympathy for your poor misjudgment of that night? Especially after knowing what’s come of it and how you chose to handle it?”

“How I chose to handle it? What choice did you leave me exactly?” she spat, feeling tears pricking at the back of her eyes. It was eleven years after the fact and she still felt like the young, just graduated, mindful witch who’d bothered to take him in after he’d been attacked, it was like nothing had changed.

“Clearly you could have contacted me!” he growled. “You could have told me the moment you found out! You had nine bloody months to do something about it, not to mention the eleven years proceeding that!”

“And tell her what, exactly? Sorry honey, you can’t see Daddy because he’s a rapist and I’m too afraid to approach him on the matter because he’ll fall into a downward spiral and land himself in St. Mungo’s for a permanent stint?”

He was on his feet jerking her arm up before she could even cry out in pain. Severus twisted her arm around behind her back and had the girl’s back flush against his chest, lips pursed to snarl in her ear. “Why don’t you just tell her what you told that husband of yours? School girl crush and all that rut and that you came to my bed, begging me to take you, hmm? Or is that too good for the noble Hermione Granger?”

“Stop it!” she hissed, struggling against him, but before she could even attempt to reach for her wand he’d flung her down hard over the table. “Oh!”

“Maybe I should just do it again? Then you can have another eleven years to contemplate what to do about this child, hmm?” he hissed and grabbed at her hair, pushing it up off her neck.

“Severus, stop it!” she squealed through tears, pushing back against him.

“That’s enough!” Aberforth came striding toward them both, wand drawn.

Rolling his eyes, Severus pushed down hard on the girl before releasing her and stepping back. “Don’t make me blast you into oblivion, old man, I’ve done it once to your brother and I’m sure doing it to you wouldn’t be that much different!” He drew his wand and pointed it.

“Severus!” Hermione cried, balancing up on her feet, and grabbing at his arm. “Leave him, Aberforth, he’s putting on a show.”

“Darlin’, you may be young and pretty, and level headed, but he was about to—”

“No. No he wasn’t.” she said calmly, face still full of tears.

“I heard you shoutin’, girl, you said he’d done it before—”

“You misheard, then.” She said, grabbing for her wand and drawing it, pointing at the older of the two men. “I think as a barkeep, you should learn to mind your business, lest you lose it.”

The bright blue eyes twinkled. “Is that a threat, missy? I’ve half a notion to call Albus down here to—”

“If you think for a minute I won’t hex him too if he tries to interfere, you’re mistaken, Aberforth, now, mind your business. Your brother has taught me some of the finer points of augmentation spells and don’t think I’m beneath using them on some of my more vicious curses.”

Stuffing his wand back into his pocket, he shuffled into the back of the bar and slammed the door. Severus rounded on his heel, faced her, and then grabbed her shoulders, marching her back until she was pinned against the wall. “Why are you defending me?” he spat.

The fear had all but returned to her eyes, and she closed them, ashamed to look at him. “Please, Severus, just—”

“Just what, Hermione? Do it again? So that you can lord another child over my head?”

“I’m not lording her over you!” she spat. “I didn’t know what to do! I was young! I wasn’t expecting it!” Her arms were suddenly tugging on the front of his frockcoat. “I couldn’t go to Albus, he’d know, and Harry never would have understood! I had no one to turn to! My parents wouldn’t have understood why their brilliant daughter suddenly turned up pregnant with no one to claim as the father!”

“You should have told them the truth! You were a victim, Hermione, my victim!” he seethed, keeping both hands square on her shoulders. “You should have let me—”

“Go to Azkaban? So you could live out your days among the dementors? And so that one day when Caterina was old enough to question, my answer would have to be ‘Daddy’s a rapist in Azkaban, sweetey, but don’t you worry, he can’t hurt us?’ Yes I suppose that’s exactly what I should have done!”

“You would have lied to her just like you’re lying to her now,” he spat. “And what does it matter to you what people think of me? Azkaban is where I—”

“No! No, you don’t.” She said, letting her eyes flash open, gazing up into his. Although she was nearly thirty he still towered over her by two heads. “You think you belong there, and forced yourself on me to try and help land yourself there…” she muttered, one hand releasing his frock coat and pushing a strand of his fallen hair back behind his ear. “But you don’t.”

He fell silent, frozen at her touch, and it was all he could do to keep from slamming her hard against the wall and running out of the bar. A knot was building in the pit of his stomach, threatening to make him wretch and he pinched his lips together.

“You let those boys beat you, they had no right to.”

“You shouldn’t speak of matters where you don’t know the facts, Miss Granger.”

“Dumbledore is alive!” she said, her voice rising a bit higher, as if trying to prevent a stream of tears from leaking out of her eyes. “You were cleared, you’re reinstated! You only did what you did to me, because you felt like you deserved to be there, but everything is alright now—”

“No, Miss Granger, everything is not alright.” He could feel it slipping, over forty years of self resolve ready to crack and flow forth a dam of emotion all because that stupid girl had not moved her hand from his cheek. “You go and tell Charity Burbage, and countless others that it’s alright. You go and find Ted Lupin and tell him it’s alright that both of his parents are dead at my hand,” he spat, and then narrowed his eyes.

She shook her head. “No, no. No, Severus,” her lips were quaking. “You did what you had to do, for the Greater Good—”

“Don’t give me that Greater Good fodder, Hermione.” His eyes were filled to the brim with tears, and it took every ounce of focus he had not to let one spill. “It was murder, in cold blood, most of the time, and it’s on my hands! And rape, countless rapes, taking you that night was like being back at a revel, how wonderful of a father must I be, when I’ve raped so many women that I’ve lost track over the—”

“Stop!” she said, and when his lips kept moving she forced the hand that had caressed his cheek over his mouth until he stilled his tongue. “It’s the past. You did what you had to do, Severus, I know that, when will you know that?”

There was a long silence, his breath against her palm and the tops of her fingers the only sound coming from him. “You shouldn’t defend me, I don’t deserve it.” He said after a long while.

“Don’t, just don’t,” her lips trembled again, and her eyes looked up, searching his. “Accidents happen, but you have to make the best of them.”

“I would have been a horrible person to raise that little girl.”

Her eyes once more filled with tears. “And as long as you believed that, I couldn’t let her near you,” she whispered, and then they fell, trickling down her cheek. “I knew you’d say that, I knew you’d hate yourself even more for what had happened, but I look at Caterina,” she sniffed, “she has your eyes, you know…” her words trailed off as she hiccoughed through her tears. “I look at her as a sign, a sign that you were meant to start something new, something beautiful. New life is a symbol, she was your new lease on life…” her eyes fell, and closed. “But I knew that you still desperately clung to the past, and would only torture yourself over it—”

“If she was my new chance at starting over, who were you to make the decision to withhold her from me?” he growled, only it was half-hearted, a sob almost breaking over his lips.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Severus!” her words were tear filled now, and she could hardly keep her body from quaking. “Tell me you would have welcomed her with open arms and decided that she was your new lease on life! That she was your sign, your second chance!”

Blinking, his thick, black lashes could no longer hold back the tears and they leaked down over his cheeks, and his nose, silently falling from his eyes. “When I look into her eyes,” she sniffed, reaching a shaking hand forward to cup the side of his face, “those eyes…I see you, and thank god every day that he gave her your eyes…”

“Who do we curse for giving her your hair?”

She hiccoughed, and laughed, her head falling forward against his chest as she did. “Oh, I’m a mess, I’m terribly—”

His lips had brushed against hers so suddenly that she wasn’t sure if the rest of her sentence had been swallowed into his mouth or if she’d just stopped talking. They were warm, and her mind raced back eleven years ago, and before she even realized it, her tongue was brushing against his and her arms coming around his neck.

A moment passed, their lips entwined and then she found her hands pressing against his chest. He pulled back. “Severus,” she shook her head. “I’m a married woman.”

“Your damn right you are!” Blake, who had appeared in the doorway of the Hogshead, a murderous look on his face, came stomping over to them. “Have you lost your mind? Kissing my wife?” Throwing back his fist, neither Hermione nor Severus had time to block the punch that landed square on his nose.