The Expectant Detectives

Hello one and all! I couldn't stay away from writing a mystery--I so love them. I hope you like reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!!

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Chapter One


Hermione Granger-Snape arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry feeling a good deal worse than she had in quite a long time. Her stomach was at odds with anything she put in it, mysterious aches and pains were popping up just about everywhere in and on her person, and, for the love of Merlin, where did she leave her brain? She would put something down and look for it a minute later, never recalling exactly where she placed it. One time the paper she had been looking for was in her hand. No, she thought, this wasn’t a good day. And it only became worse from that moment on.


She had no sooner stepped into the labs than Harry showed up with Kingsley in tow. They took her out of the MCSI unit despite her protests that she had work to see to.


“Harry, I swear if you complain later about the evidence you need on that case…”


“I won’t,” he assured her. “Please just humor us?”


“Fine,” she told them in a clipped voice. “But this better not be some joke, I’m behind enough as it is what with training the new interns.”


They went straight over to Harry’s office and she sat down waiting for them to figure out which one would tell her whatever it was they needed to. It was obvious to Hermione that neither wanted to do so.


“Oh for Merlin sake!” she snapped when she saw that they were starting to play rock, paper, scissors. “Will one of you grow up, so I can get back to work?”


“That’s just it,” Harry said. “You can’t.”


“What?” she asked slowly.


“One of the wards went off,” Kingsley told her. “The pregnancy ward.”


“Hermione, you were the only woman there,” Harry pointed out when she said nothing. “And as you know there is very strict policy in the labs in regards to pregnant witches.”


“We can’t take the chance of any of the testing you are doing harming your baby. Your job will be here when you return, never worry about that,” Kingsley said, trying to see if that helped get some sort of reaction out of her. “You’ll need to be gone the length of the pregnancy as well as the typical maternity leave you would need once you’ve given birth. It’s going to be about a year in all that you’ll be on leave.”


“The lab couldn’t operate without you,” Harry told her. But when she just sat there staring at them, he snapped, “Say something!”


She blinked at them owlishly. “I’m pregnant?”


“Oh Merlin,” Kingsley breathed.


“You mean you didn’t know?” Harry cried. “How couldn’t you know? Women know these things!”


She shook her head no. “I created the wards for the labs, Harry. If I knew, I wouldn’t have gone in.”


That had both of the wizards looking at each other, feeling like top rate fools for not figuring that one out.


And so she was congratulated and sent on her way home early to spend the next year on paid maternity leave. She went into their sitting room and tried as she might to think of a way to tell Severus, the man she loved and married that they were having a child but nothing came to mind.


Sitting back in the lounge, she struggled not to panic over it. After all this was a normal thing! Having a baby was all a part of life and its glorious wonders. It was just a shame that her husband hated them to his back teeth. She nearly groaned at that thought. How did it happen?


Well, she knew how it happened, but how did it happen! Was there a mix up in her potions? Did she forget to take it? Or was it the planets that were just aligned correctly? That time she did let out a groan, pressing her fingers to her eye that had begun to twitch from the stress.


“Merlin help us all if that load of imbeciles are the future of our world!” Severus exclaimed the moment he was through the door.


She lifted her head as she watched, as he was about to make his way over to their room. He stopped and walked back over to the sitting room.


“You’re home early,” he said, a worry line creasing his brow. “Is there something the matter? Are you ill?”


“I’m fine,” she told him. “It’s nothing I won’t get over.” In nine months, she thought sourly. “Why are you yelling?”


“Nothing you want to hear about, I’m sure,” he murmured, sitting down next to her. “You are a bit pale.” She watched as he checked her temperature by pressing his hand to her forehead. “No fever.”


“None,” she assured him. “I asked for some time off.”


“Really? How much time?”


“October…”…through the next year.


He shuddered at the thought of what she had gone through every October for the last five years before in the labs. Everyone seemed to go mad in the wizarding world during that month and so that meant hours of what felt like endless work. By the time the Day of the Dead arrived, she was more than ready to drop.


“Good,” he said, hugging her. “Will they be calling you for help though?”


“I doubt it.”


He pulled back slightly. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”


“Yes, there is. Just…just give me sometime to figure it all out,” she murmured. “I will let you know. I always do. But this time, I need a little while first to digest it all.”


“You promise you’ll inform me later?”


“You know I will.”


“Very well,” he said. “In that case, we’ve been invited over to Lucius’s for lunch.”


A nice light lunch sounded good, she thought, as she stood up. “Must I dress up or is casual fair okay?”


“Casual is more than perfect, but not the uniform, love. Lucius might get it in his head you’re there to arrest him,” he told her as she was laughing on the way to their room. “You won’t tell me…”


“I could, but I don’t know how you’ll take the news,” she explained to him as she went about changing into her casual robes.


“So it’s serious?” he asked, watching her as she went.


She stopped and looked over at him. Taking a breath, she was about to tell him the news when Lucius Malfoy himself charged into their bedroom looking haunted.


“House elves are destroying my home!” he exclaimed.


“Call the aurors,” she told him, as she finished getting dressed.


“I thought I was,” Lucius said. “You must come now!”


“Very well,” she said flatly. “But if this is your idea of a Halloween jest, I’m hexing your balls off.”


Grabbing her wand she charged over to the floo. Lucius looked over to Severus who was just about to growl at him. “Did I come at a bad time?”


“She was about to tell me she was pregnant, you ass,” Severus hissed, charging after his wife to ensure her safety.


“She get’s pregnant and you loose your sense of humor?” he called out once he was sure Severus’s wife had gone through the floo already. “It’s not my fault I think the house elves on pot are funny.”


“It’s fucking hilarious,” Severus said. “But she’s under enough stress as it is without you adding to it.”


“When do you think she’ll tell you?” Lucius asked, as he took up a pinch of floo powder.


“Soon I hope,” he sighed. “How a genius witch can be so oblivious to her own body is beyond me. She only took note of the morning sickness at dawn today.” Rolling his eyes he stepped into the floo.


They found Hermione tapping her wand with a sour look on her face as the Malfoy family’s house elves were all but flying around her. They were dancing, swinging off of the chandeliers, and a few were even bouncing off the walls.


“You gave them marijuana, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice low.


“Calm yourself, love,” Severus murmured. “It’s easily solved.” When she looked at him. “It’s one of the reasons teenage witches and wizards do it. It’s so harmless...” A house elf landed on his head, making him growl in irritation.


“Please do go on, dearest,” she said sarcastically, standing up taller on her toes to help the now petrified elf off her husband’s head. “I want to hear more about how harmless it is.”


“Point made,” he said between gritted teeth. “Lucius! Enough!”


“Spoil sport,” he groused, as he waved his wand and all the elves seemed to come out of a dream. A few of them chuckled, but the rest seemed embarrassed. “Go back to work! You’ve been lazy long enough today!”


All of them popped out of the room. All that is except one. Hermione went over to the little being that was on a rug under the table, looking at it with a growing sense of dread.


“Uh, Lucius, you have a problem,” she told him.


“Yes, I know, but I was born this way and witches must just come to terms with my prowess,” he drawled dryly.


She looked over to him. “One of these days your ego will kill you, but that wasn’t what I was talking about.” Hermione pointed. “That isn’t a house elf.”


“What?” Both he and Severus went over to see what she was talking about.


“It’s a little person,” Severus murmured. “That is the politically correct term am I right?”


“Yes,” Hermione said.


“So what’s the problem with that? You aren’t all that tall either and you were born to muggles…”


“Again, you are off point,” Hermione muttered. “He isn’t an elf at all and the man is dead. Or has his lack of respiration totally escaped your notice?”


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There you go! Chapter One! So are you curious yet? Let me know! Please review.