Severus Snape approached Minerva's office, stopping frequently to rest, using a wall for discreet support. The occassional student would give him an odd look, but a glare would always send them running along their way. When he finally reached his destination, the door was open invitingly and she sat at her desk grading papers. He entered, and dropped as gracefully as he could into the chair across from her. It wasn't remarkably graceful. "Minerva."
She smiled. "Hello, Severus. I haven't seen you in a while."
Ignoring her implicit question, he went right to the point. "It's April, Hagrid's due soon, isn't he?"
"A little more than a month," she agreed, surprised as his choice of topic. Until now he had avoided it religiously.
"Do you know much about birthing babies?"
She blinked. What an odd question. "Shouldn't you be asking Poppy this?"
His head shook violently. "No mediwitch." Minerva remembered belatedly that Albus told her Severus had developed an inexplicable phobia of doctors and mediwitches.
"All right," she said, trying to project calm toward the suddenly distraught wizard. She had never seen Severus like this. It scared her. "No mediwitches," she agreed in her Consoling Head of House Voice.
He calmed immediately. "Good. Do you know about birthing babies?"
"I was present when my sister had her two children. Why?"
Shrugging negligently, he said off-handedly, "I just wondered what Hagrid would be going through. Never having been present when anyone but myself was born. I feel . . . moderately responsible for his condition." He looked up at her in quick alarm, "It was entirely Fang's fault, I'm not claiming fatherhood, it's just, I was the one who made the bloody potion."
Minerva did her best to hide her surprise. He was showing human emotion; indifference (subtly different from the blankness he usually wore), alarm, hesitation. Not only was he showing emotion, but he was switching between emotions with unusually quick speed. If that was how he normally was, he might have developed that blank mask to keep people from getting too confused. And that wasn't even mentioning that he was bringing up how he felt about something in an actual conversation.
"It will be difficult, long, and painful," she answered the question from what she had seen with her sister. "I'm not sure how it will differ with him being a wizard and all. I can't imagine it will be any easier."
"If something happened to Poppy, and he started to have his baby, who in this school would probably be the best to go to? Would you be able to help birth it?"
She looked at him strangely. She had the odd sense that his question was not idle speculation. "I don't know. Maybe. Sprout has a daughter, she might be better."
Severus shook his head. "I asked her already. She said all she remembers about it is pain, pushing, and holding the baby afterwards. If there were complications, and you had to take the baby out directly, would you be able to do that?"
The sudden shift in topic was disorienting, but she followed it. Shaking her head no, she said, "I'm a transfiguration teacher, Severus, not a mediwitch or a midwife."
For a second, his eyes became haunted and scared, then they blanked again and he turned his steady gaze on her. "Would Albus be able to, do you think? Flitwick?"
"Severus, do you know something is going to happen to Poppy?" she asked, worried. She knew he was genuinely afraid of something, and if Severus Snape was afraid, the rest of the world was supposed to be terrified. For all Gryffindor was supposed to be the home of the brave, she had never seen anyone except maybe Harry Potter match the current Head of Slytherin House in that attribute.
He shook his head quickly. "No, Poppy should be fine. Neither myself nor Voldemort are plotting her death."
Minerva chuckled faintly, hoping that including himself in that had been a joke. "Then what's the matter?"
"Tell me you can do a Ceasarean section, and I'll tell you." He sounded desperate and urgent, two things she would not have expected to hear from him in regards to, well, anything, but more surprisingly, Hagrid's child.
"Right now, I can't. I'll ask Poppy for a crash course, though. Why do you need someone who can perform that?"
His eyes held, very briefly, a look of desperate hope. "Yes, do that. When you can, come to my quarters, and I'll tell you." He paused for a moment, then asked, "May I use your floo to get back to my rooms?" She waved a hand toward the fireplace invitingly. He stood, rising with some small difficulty, then left.
What an odd conversation.
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On April 18th, Minerva knocked on the door to Severus's rooms about two weeks after their strange conversation. She'd been briefed in the basics of the operation Severus requested, but she had very little confidence she could successfully perform one. Poppy had wondered about her interest, but, in light of Severus's strange paranoia, she opted not to tell. She had not seen her collegue since that day. In fact, except for that one conversation, she had not seen much of Severus Snape in almost two months.
"Who is it?" his voice demanded irritiably.
"Minerva!"
There was a noticable pause. "Do you have the skill that I asked you about?"
"As good as I'm going to get."
The door opened, and she stepped inside, absently closing the door behind her. Severus was sitting in the chair closest to the door, looking like he had been napping there. "Severus?" she asked worriedly. Albus's concerns about the potions master's health hadn't included the bone weariness she saw in his face now. "Severus, what's wrong?"
"I can't do it anymore," he whispered, "take him out of me, Minerva." She didn't know where he drew his wand from, but it was suddenly in his hand, and casting a finite incantium.
Minerva screamed, she couldn't help it. Severus broke a smirk for her reaction, but she barely noticed. Her eyes were stuck on his stomach which completely took over the entirety of his lap. Hagrid wasn't even close to that big.
"So you didn't know?" he asked, sounding very smug with himself. "I figured you or Albus would probably work it out, you two are his godparents, by the way. Take Severin out of me, Minerva. He's not going to come out by himself. I can barely stand anymore. And walking? I can barely manage a waddle, but I need to stride or people will know. Take him out."
Connections connected in her brain, and she reached the solution, "He's Hagrid's."
"No, he's mine. Hagrid's got his own."
"But they're brothers, twins even."
Severus gave her a look halfway between a glare and a what-in-the-devils-name-are-you-talking-about-woman sort of look.
"They were conceived on the same day, by the same parents, weren't they? That makes them twins."
"Fine. Twins. Seperated before birth when Severin's mother left his father or Baby Hagrid's father left its mother, depending on your point of view. Now take Severin out."
"You're a month premature."
He turned his death glare on her and said through clenched teeth, "The kid is a quarter giant, Minerva. I'm male and full human, except about one two-hundred-and-fifty-sixths which is vampire, and no larger than a human, so get the boy out."
Minerva decided to save the rest of her questions for later, knowing that, as a mother holds her child for the first time, she barely notices what come out her mouth. She transfigured the chair he was sitting in into a bed. "This'll hurt like hell if you're awake for it," she warned.
"Both myself and Severin have suffered crutacious, Minerva. I took Hagrid into me. This will be nothing." Minerva's gut twisted at the first statement, and she wondered about the second. Had the experience of conceiving the child really been comparible to the second Unforgivable curse?
But she said nothing, unbuttoned his magically enlarged robes, and revealed his distended belly. It was then she realized that she was about to perform a very dangerous operation on one of her closest friends, in his living room, with no formal training. "Severus, get Poppy to do this. I'll kill you."
"Then, if I die, take care of Severin for me. Severin Sheldon Snape. He gets everything. He will be born alive, the potion guarantees that. Now, get him out of me, Minerva," he finished his final requests impatiently.
Severus barely flinched as she slid her wand across his stomach splitting it open. It was gruesome, but she eventually got the child out and handed the gooey mess of infant over to his father/mother's waiting arms. For all the smile on his face, one would never believe Severus Snape's stomach was cut wide open, and he was being given a squalling child. Then she patched up the cut, using a Fast Regneration Charm with a Stitching Charm. She turned her attention back up higher where Severus had already cast a cleaning charm on the baby, and was gingerly, and awkwardly holding his son as he laid flat on his back. She slowly transfigured the bed into a partially reclined chair.
When she finished this task, the child had begun suckling on one of Severus's breasts. Minerva flushed faintly as she realized that they had rounded out a bit. Severus was looking at his son in wonder. "By all laws of pregnancy, he shouldn't be alive," he said quietly. "He shouldn't be healthy. He shouldn't be happy. But he is, and I'll see that he stays that way."
"Of course he's happy," Minerva said quietly. "His mother loves him."
She was surprised yet again. Severus didn't even try to glare at her. He just smiled at the baby, and said, "Yes, he does." Soon the child had drunk his fill, and fell asleep in Severus's arms. Despite her intention to use this time to interrogate him, she just stared in wonder at the scene. "Minerva?"
"Yes?"
"Would you bring him into the nursery? Door across from my bedroom. Not sure if I trust myself to walk with him yet."
Minerva smiled. "Certainly." She took the tiny - well, compared to an eleven year old - child from his parent, and brought him into a room painted blue, with a colorful potion bottle theme. She smirked at Severus's obvious hand in the decorating. The elegantly carved dark-stained wooden crib stood against one wall, and she wondered how he had smuggled it into Hogwarts and how long it had waited there. She laid the baby into his crib and pulled the blanket over him, brushing at his soft black hair. The poor child was cursed with the Snape nose, but the rest of his face was a bit wider and larger, making it not stand out quite so much.
She cast one spell on him, for curiousity's sake, and was surprised by the numbers that formed over the sleeping infant. Eleven pounds eight ounces, and still a month premature. No wonder Severus wanted the boy out.
When she returned to the living room, she was surprised (yet again) to find Severus sitting in his de-transfigured chair, with the concealling charm on him again. "I assume you have questions?" he asked, waving her toward one of the chairs. She nodded and accepted the invitation.
Severus shifted every so slightly, and as she looked toward him, her eyes widened as she saw his wand drawn. "Obliviate."
Minerva couldn't remember going from the door of Severus's rooms to the chair, but she apparently had. He was looking at her expectantly. Irritated, she snapped, "Well, are you going to tell me what I learned that operation for or not?"
"I heard a rumour Poppy might not be around Hogwarts at the time Hagrid's due, and I wanted to make sure there was back up, that's all."
"That's all?" she repeated.
"I've been having nightmares, I was probably half-delusional. Soon, I might even think about letting Poppy see if she can figure out what's wrong with me."
Minerva nodded, anything that would get the man to see Poppy was a good thing. He was seriously worrying Albus, and now herself with his strange behaviour.
"Thank you, Minerva."
She sighed. "Good bye, Severus." That had been a wasted afternoon. When she reached her office again, she was astonished to find how long she had been down in Severus's rooms.
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