Your Baby is the Size of A...

19 Weeks - Your baby is the size of a mango

The only real indication of someone having been in his rooms , other than the sneaking suspicion he had, as though his atmosphere had been disturbed – when he returned from his weekly check-in with Poppy, wherein he had been told that Bump was the size of a mango – was the rather large cluster of dittanies bound with a silver bow. Severus glowered at the small green leaves, plucking the bow undone and selecting a stem for inspection. The waxy leaves certainly looked perfectly fresh, he still found himself frowning.

He had rather thought that Lupin would give up, as every day – every present received – Severus had made sure to completely ignore not only the gift but the gift-giver as well. He had thought that eventually the misguided lycanthrope would cease . . . whatever it was that he was trying to accomplish. And there was no mistaking that it was Lupin, even though fervent glances never seemed to linger overly long, as though the other seemed to still respect his wishes for space. If one could ignore the fact that the werewolf had taken to invading his space to leave tokens of appreciation, like flowers left outside his door.

Scowling, Severus replaced the single dittany with the others, setting it down with a sneer.

"He's running out of ideas for whatever the hell it is he's trying to convey," he told Bump sharply, cupping the underside of his stomach as though he could alleviate some of the weight by transferring it to his palm.

Of course, the choice of dittany blatantly gave it away that it was Lupin leaving him presents – as though there had been some question to it. No one else would have been dense enough to try and sway his mind with potion ingredients. Actually, no one else would have been dense enough to think to try and court him after he had made it crystal clear he wanted nothing to do with them.

No one but Lupin.

Dittany was an extremely useful ingredient for things such as Wolfsbane, a rather loudly proclaimed calling card. And Severus left it where he had found it – on his coffee table, next to his favorite copy of Unusual Poisons. Instead, he retreated into his bedroom and slowly changed out of his teaching robes and into his pajama bottoms. Earlier in the day he had thought perhaps he was actually hungry – though the hollowness of his stomach was better than the unbearable ache of insatiable hunger – but as the day had progressed, Severus had realized it was simply exhaustion, which was understandable.

Bump had taken to blessing him with strange dreams the last few days, waking him up often and keeping him awake until he thought his mind would go crazy with the tiredness.

He crawled into bed, resting on his side with a pillow between his knees. Severus kneaded his fingers into his skin, rubbing particularly hard against his hip, against the underside of his belly, up along his ribs. His breath puffed out of his nose in a sigh, as he tried to relax further into the mattress, into the nest of his bedclothes. His hand traveled down to his thigh, rubbing at the ache there as his toes pointed, straightening his leg blissfully, the motion pulling his spine straight as his knuckles dug into the tired muscles before his leg relaxed. His body slumped back into the relaxed curl around Bump.

Severus sighed again, rubbing his palm slowly over the soft skin of his stomach, feeling where his old scars had stretched with his abdomen, smoothing. His fingertips found the edges of his ribs, traced the shallow crevice of his hip, the taunt skin between belly and groin.

"What the fuck is he on about, hmm," he asked Bump, as though the baby – being half Lupin's – would know better than he about why the lycanthrope was acting so strangely. He lightened his touch until his fingertips made the barest of contact with his sensitive stomach, tracing slow patterns in a way that tended to lull Bump – and himself – into a light doze.