Dance with the Devil

Disclaimer: Once more – I am not JKR. These people do not belong to me. I have no money therefore I must be making none.

Chapter Nine: Duplicity of the Devil

“I have to leave,” Snape said, rising up from his knees. He ran his hands distractedly through his hair as his eyes darted around the room, all the consequences of Hermione’s pregnancy racing through his mind.

His brief surge of triumph vanished, leaving behind only worry and fear. Together with a healthy dose of panic.

Hermione continued to weep, her body wracked with sobs.

“Stop it!” he ordered sharply. “This is a good thing. I will be able to protect you properly now!”

Just then, the fire sputtered and turned green as Draco Malfoy stepped through.

Seeing the scene before him, he promptly spun around and tried to leave, but Severus grasped his arm, dragging him away from the fire.

“What’s the Mudblood crying about now?” Draco asked, affecting a bored tone whilst trying to wrench his arm out of Snape’s vice-like grip.

“We have to go now,” the older, flustered wizard informed him.

“Where?” Draco slanted a glare at Hermione as her sobs increased in volume.

“The cat,” Snape hissed, too low for the wailing witch to hear. “Do NOT ask why!”

Pushing Draco back to the hearth, Severus swooped down on Hermione again, bracing his hands on either side of her hips and leaning into her.

“Madam, I have to go,” he all but shouted at her. “I must have your word that you will do nothing until I come back!”

Hermione just sobbed.

“HERMIONE!” Severus barked.

Startled, Hermione stopped mid-sob and stared at him.

“Your word, madam,” he reminded her grimly.

She nodded, whispering, “I promise,” only to dissolve back into tears.

Snape nodded and, in an oddly affectionate gesture, pushed her curls away from her face while conjuring up an extremely large handkerchief.

“I will return promptly,” he promised softly, before turning back to the dumbstruck blonde wizard.

Grasping up Floo powder with one hand, he pulled Draco behind him with the other and stepped into the green flames.

*~*

In the Great Hall, a chime rang in Minerva McGonagall’s ear. Pushing back her seat, she excused herself from the table and, using one of the many hidden passageways in the school, ran up to her office.

Panting slightly with her hat askew, she burst into the room to find Severus pacing back and forth as Draco Malfoy’s eyes followed him, a mixed look of worry and longing on his face.

Grimacing slightly at that revelation, Minerva cleared her throat loudly.

“About time you showed up, you bilious old feline,” Snape spat at her, his long legs quickly covering the distance between them.

“I was in the Great Hall,” she loftily informed him, “and am not as young as I used to be.”

Severus snorted. “Together with the fact that you are probably still using that silly bell in your hat to warn you when there is someone in your office. The Dark Lord has …”

“Given me permission to run the school as I see fit,” she concluded warningly. “Why are you here anyway?”

Snape shot a frustrated look at Draco, who started, realising he had not cast the necessary spell.

“A wonderful day when my great-whatever-nephew forgets to attend me,” came the sneering voice of Phineas Nigellus.

Draco hurriedly crossed the room to the portrait, casting the Doppleganger spell less subtly than normal. Minerva and Severus quickly Disillusioned themselves and retired to the hidden room.

“What is it?” Minerva asked, dropping her spell and looking to where she thought Snape would be.

“Disaster,” he growled from behind her.

Whipping around she saw he had resumed his pacing.

“She’s pregnant,” he informed her abruptly.

Minerva gasped. “But that’s wonderful. We can have the full binding and …”

“She is not ready,” he continued, ignoring her effusions, “and the Dark Lord wanted her brought to him once she was breeding.”

“He promised you six months,” Minerva indignantly replied. “He promised.”

Snape looked at her sardonically, making her feel like an immature school girl.

“As far as I can tell, she is only approximately four or five weeks along,” Severus continued, forking his hand through his hair. “I did not think it would happen so quickly. It must have been the coffee.”

Minerva blinked at the non sequitur.

“I cannot take her to him,” he said, suddenly turning and pinning her with his dark gaze. “I promised her full protection, but she is not ready.”

The Headmistress pulled off her hat and rubbed at her forehead. “What will happen if you follow orders and take her to him?”

As Severus’ eyes widened in horror, she snapped, “Just humour me!”

Drawing himself up to his full height and tucking his hands into the opposite robe sleeves, Snape recited emotionlessly, “First the Dark Lord will rape her mind to try and find any shred of knowledge about the rebel Order and to gather any memories of her time with them. As he did with you. Then she will be given to any Death Eater who wants her. As long as they do not hurt my child, they can do whatever they like to her and I can say or do nothing to stop them.”

“And if I marry the two of you properly beforehand?”

“He will invade her mind, find the knowledge that I offered her the full protection of marriage, not just the limited form of marriage he gave permission for, then he will have her tortured and raped before ripping the unborn child from her. Once I have recovered from my own punishment, I will be obliged to make a potion using the foetus of my own child as the main ingredient.”

“Not a happy scenario in either case then,” Minerva murmured, moving over to one of the seemingly smooth walls.

Severus let out a quick laugh, enjoying Minerva’s mastery of understatement.

She tapped her wand in a complicated pattern against the wall and then stepped back. As Severus walked over to her, a small square of the wall opened up and she reached inside. Pulling out a blank scroll, quill and ink she handed them to him. She reached in again and removed a rune encrusted bowl filled with a silvery, shimmering liquid.

“How do you feel about the child, Severus?” she asked, carefully placing the bowl on the ground between them.

He eyed the Pensieve warily.

“We are in the middle of an ongoing war, my position is precarious and the mother of said child was once my most annoying student,” he stated emphatically.

Minerva gazed at him levelly, the same look she used on classrooms of unruly students.

“I am … pleased,” he finally admitted.

“Does anyone else know, or suspect?”

“No,” he responded. “When Draco finally arrived, he only saw her crying before we came here. I do not think he understands the significance.”

There was a short period of silence.

“Can you hide it from him?” she asked bluntly.

He shook his head.

“Then you have to write to her,” she asserted, nudging the scroll in his hand.

He looked down at the bowl and then at her.

“This has been done before,” he flatly stated.

She nodded.

“What else is in there?”

“Severus, as I have said before, I will return everything to you once this is all over. Not that the assurance matters – you won’t remember it anyway,” she concluded, softly sympathetic.

Snape nodded tersely.

Waving her wand at her abandoned hat, Minerva quickly Transfigured it into a lectern. The cavernous room was silent save for the scratching of quill on parchment. Once finished, Snape closed and sealed the scroll, wrote Madam Snape on the front and handed it to Minerva.

She read the name and raised her brows. “Is this allowed?” she asked, tapping the name with her wand.

Severus shrugged and refused to meet her eyes.

Sighing, Minerva placed an Obliviatum on the scroll and handed it back to the tormented wizard.

“Once you hand it to her, the spell will activate and the memory of handing her the letter will be erased from your mind,” she gently reminded him. “It will be replaced with a commonplace memory of you handing her a book. You have handed her a book, haven’t you?”

Snape nodded, his eyes focussed on the Pensieve on the ground between them.

Minerva quickly Transfigured the lectern back into her hat and Summoned it onto her head.

“How much longer will you need?” she asked softly.

Snape sighed, his eyes not moving. “At her rate of learning, she will be a proficient enough Occlumens in another six weeks. I wrote for her to tell me about the child in two months’ time.”

“I’m so very sorry, Severus,” Minerva whispered, tears choking her voice.

At that, he finally raised his head to look at her and her misery increased. His face had the same lost look as he’d had on the night when Sirius Black tried to feed him to Remus Lupin.

The same look as when he had gazed on Albus Dumbledore’s portrait.

Eyes caught, Severus raised his wand to his forehead, whispering a blocking spell. He could not afford to find out about Hermione’s pregnancy during another Occlumency lesson. He also cast a modified Confundus to ensure he did not notice her changing body or the disruption to her usual feminine routine.

Steeling her heart, Minerva reached out, placing her wand against his forehead and, mumbling an incantation that Snape could not hear, pulled all memory of Hermione’s pregnancy from his mind.

While he was still writhing in pain on the ground, she quickly hid the Pensieve. Then she pulled him upright, Disillusioned them both and forced him back into her office.

Once again, they returned and dropped the Disillusion just as Draco’s spell gave out.

“Enough of this,” Minerva snapped at the grimacing wizard. “Why are you here?”

Snape was quiet, rubbing furiously at his aching head.

Draco, trying to think up some reason for this visit, blurted out, “She keeps on crying!”

Minerva huffed. “Of course she does! She’s been dragged away from her home, forced to submit to an unnatural relationship with her teacher …”

“Former teacher,” Snape corrected, a trace of snarkiness returning to his voice.

“… who is probably ignoring her, just as she has been ignored her entire life. Oh yes, Mr Malfoy,” she continued, seeing a look of disbelief cross the younger Death Eater’s face, “Miss Granger has not exactly been loved and cosseted all her life. The only way she has ever gained any attention is through her intelligence and knowledge.”

“But Weasley and …” Draco began, to be cut off.

“Only befriended her when she lied to save their useless hides,” Severus revealed. “You are, of course, correct, Headmistress McGonagall. However, why on earth should I bother paying any attention to a little know-it-all Mudblood?”

“Well, it might stop her crying!” Minerva spat. “Is that all? You just came to try to gain advice on your love life? If so, I do have a school to run!”

Snape bowed. “A pleasure, as always. I must say, it is such a lovely day outside. I might go for a walk in the Forbidden Forest. What a shame you are not able to join me,” he commiserated insincerely.

With a smirk, he activated the Floo and stepped through.

With a small flick of her wand, Minerva tipped over the bowl of powder.

“Damn it!” Draco swore. “It’s contaminated now!”

Minerva shrugged apologetically. “I will walk you down to one of the Professors’ studies. They have more powder, although we will have to come back here for you to Floo out.”

She strode over to the door. “Come, Mr Malfoy,” she commanded in a voice that brooked no disobedience.

With one last look at the spilled powder, Draco followed her.

*~*

By the time Severus stepped through the fire, Hermione had calmed enough that she was no longer crying. She watched him as he crossed the room to her, holding out a scroll with Madam Snape inscribed on it in his spidery handwriting.

“You must study this now,” he curtly informed her before leaving the room.

Dumbfounded, she watched him leave the room. She started to get up to follow him, but instead subsided into her seat and studied the sealed scroll. Frowning, she broke it open and began to read.

Dear Miss Granger,

Contrary to what the cover of this scroll says, you are still Miss Granger and not Madam Snape. The ceremony we undertook with Mr Malfoy is a form of marriage, but it does not give you the full protection that I have promised you. If you had accepted my first proposal, things might have been different, but it is doubtful. However, by binding yourself to me the way you did, you have some greater protection, but not one that I can discuss with you or utilise at this point.

I must be brief. Now that you are pregnant we are able to have a full marriage. I have in place the necessary means for us to be wed this way. Unfortunately, you are not ready for this marriage – your Occlumency skills are not yet adequate. It is due to this that I have had all knowledge of your pregnancy wiped from my mind. The Dark Lord has instructed that I present you to him either six months from when you first returned to the Wizarding world or as soon as you are pregnant. You would not be able to block the knowledge from him that I have offered you the full protection of marriage; the Dark Lord did not give permission for me to offer this to you. He only allowed me to claim you as wife for six months so that any child conceived would not be a bastard.

You must understand this – I cannot know of your pregnancy until your Occlumency skills are adequate enough to block this knowledge from him. If he discovers I knew you were pregnant and did not present you to him, all our lives are worthless. I anticipate that your skills will be sufficient enough in another six weeks or so. I have placed a block in my mind that will not allow me to read any thoughts relating to your condition. Do not ask me about it.

Thus, Miss Granger, please ensure that you do not inform me of your condition for another eight weeks. For both our sakes.

SS

P.S. Do not eat any paté or soft boiled eggs or soft cheese. Stay away from caffeine. Eat lots of green vegetables. There are books about pregnancy on the bottom of the eighth bookcase. Do not let me see you reading them.

As soon as she finished reading, the scroll rolled itself up and burst into flames.

It was a testament to Hermione’s current life that this revelation seemed almost mundane.


*~*~*

A/N - This story has been posted on another site (it\'s still WIP) and I\'ll post in 3 chapter blocks until it\'s caught up. Then the posting rate is one chapter a week (except when I go on holiday and forget).

So, although I don\'t acknowledge them in each of these chapters (due to the block uploading) GinnyW and JuneW have really been the driving force behind this story. They have whips - no joke!