The Serpent and the Lioness

Chapter 38

"Severus?"

Hermione walked into the house cautiously. It was dark, she flicked the old switch by the door and blinked as the light flickered to life. She could tell by the silence that greeted her that he wasn't in the house. She let out a soft sigh, the tension that had risen in her back gently ebbed away and she quickly took the stairs just inside the door.

She needed a hot bath and a long nights rest. Her stomach growled in protest for having missed both lunch and dinner but she paid it little attention as she climbed. The small window that overlooked the side yard revealed there were lights on inside the barn and she knew where he must have gone.

Over the time they had spent together, they had worked together in creating a rather adequate potions lab inside of the barn. It was well ventilated and made a perfect place to brew without fear of blowing up the kitchen. Restoring it had been a rather challenging experience but they had used it as practice for her Transfiguration exam, using more basic spells at first before moving onto the more complex. Overall, they had finished it within a week and he had spent many nights utilizing it for his research.

Though he hadn't yet shared with her what he was researching, she had been curious and went snooping on her own. Of course, he had locked up his notes inside the chest his grandfather had given him only leading to her increased curiosity. She set the snooping aside, however, in exchange for studying for her NEWTS. It all seemed so trivial to her now, given her current circumstances.

Her eyes rose to her reflection in the full-length mirror and grimaced. She looked like death warmed over. Her face was still pale from her deep sleep and her eyes were extremely dark and puffy underneath. With a small sneer to herself, she pulled her sweater vest over her head and let it fall to the floor. She worked the buttons of her dress shirt with practiced ease and ripped it away from her shoulders with a bit more force than intended.

Her eyes shot to her reflection then, the scar still visible near the curve of her hip standing out like the north star in a dark sky. With a pinched face she let the shirt fall away looking down at her skin, she didn't look pregnant. She barely had any fat left on her and surely she would have noticed.

Her fingers traced the line slowly before she turned her head away shaking it silently as she held back all that threatened to take her feet out from under her. With a deep breath and curled lips and continued the process of removing her clothes, her eyes looked anywhere but at her reflection. When the last sock was tossed carelessly towards the hamper she crawled her way inside the deep tub.

Her head thumped back heavily along the rim and she turned her eyes out the window into the starry night sky. The potion Ginny had slipped her had definitely given her the energy she had been missing but that only left her now with a brain that was more organized than before.

She had to tell him, he had a right to know. On the other hand, she didn't really have enough information. What if she told him, and he was happy about it? What if she lost the baby and it was just another dark day in the man's already dark life? 8 weeks wasn't very long time, she would know for sure in just two days. Could she make it two days?

She had already shared so much of her life with him. Would withholding such information be seen as a betrayal or deception from his side? The man had already had everyone he'd ever put trust in betraying him in some manner or another and she was bound and determined to never make it to that list. Though if she did tell him, and he left anyway, she could have had two more days with him. Two more days, to memorize his face, his smell, his touch.