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Chapter 51

Hermione awoke the next day feeling empty and disoriented. She sat up on the bed, still wearing the clothes she wore the evening before, and looked around herself.

The door was closed, and she felt the magic surrounding it. She then looked next to where she sat and was surprised that Severus was not there at her side.

Then, all of a sudden, the events of the evening before came crashing down on her. She suddenly had a  problem with breathing, and she felt the onslaught of a headache coming her way.

Feeling so exhausted she sank back down into the pillows to relax a bit more, to calm down.

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Severus, however, had been awake for hours after he had only had two hours of uneasy sleep filled with bad dreams.

The silence was slowly driving him crazy, and so he bolted up and started pacing in the living room at an abnormal speed, thinking about how he could possibly change the situation for the better.

Even after hours of pacing he still had not found anything that could possibly make this situation any better save for one rather risky idea.

Without looking at the clock he bolted out of the room and fled into the early morning hours.

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Hermione heard the door to their chambers open and close, but she was not emotionally strong enough to follow him. Instead, she stood up and readied herself for the day, looking like a robot all the while doing so.

Not long after that, she sat at the head table in the Great Hall trying desperately to put on a brave face.

The chair to her left, however, remained empty.

Minerva leant over to her sometime after Hermione had been sitting in front of her filled plate without eating anything.

"Come to my office after breakfast please," was all she said.

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Hermione knocked on the big oak wood door to the headmistress' office.

It did not take the headmistress long to ask her in and so Hermione soon found herself sitting on a couch with a cup of tea in her hands.

"What's wrong? There's something obviously troubling you," said Minerva after a few minutes of uneasy silence between them.

"I just don't know what to do. It's complicated and just - it's just too much at the moment," said Hermione, putting her teacup away.

A single tear was rolling down her cheek when her boss stood up from the armchair opposite her and walked over to her, sitting down to her right.

"What is it? You can talk to me about anything, you know that?"

Hermione nodded and looked down at her lap before starting to explain.

"I just feel like I'm not enough for him or that he is sick of me. He practically is never home and when he is, we don't really talk. He gets home late at night when I most often am already in bed, and he just lies down, sleeps and leaves early the next morning on the weekends. I can't do this any more, not with the mistake I made. I told him something that drove him away even more, and I feel like I really lost him now," explained Hermione fighting the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

Professor McGonagall took her into her arms and tried to calm her down for quite some time.

"Whatever it was you told him, I'm sure you did not drive him away and I know for sure that he loves you. Don't worry too much. It will all turn out fine in the end," said the elderly woman.

"No, it won't. He fled our chambers early this morning and I know he hasn't slept much. He's surely been up, pacing and thinking all night. I told him - I told him that I am pregnant with his child."

"And why should change that anything to the worse? That would just not be like him," argued the headmistress standing up.

She stood in front of the couch, extending her hand to her successor in terms of being head of house.

"Come, Hermione."

The young brown-haired witch eyed the slightly wrinkled hand before taking it, following the headmistress outside the castle where the Scottish woman demanded she takes her arm so that they could apparate.

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Hermione and Minerva reappeared in Hogsmeade in front of a nice vintage style house.

"Why are we here, Minerva?" asked Hermione but instead of answering the older woman started walking straight ahead towards the wooden front door.

Without knocking, she walked in, waiting for Hermione to join her.

"You'll see for yourself very soon," was her short answer.

They entered the house finding themselves in a small corridor with light grey walls and old-fashioned lamps. The whole interior was warm and lightly coloured and it all had a homey feel to it.

"Come."

They walked up the stairs and Minerva led her to the last room in the long corridor on the first floor.

But before she could take a look inside, Minerva had gone inside and closed the door.

Hermione was standing there, looking quite gobsmacked, waiting for the door to open again.

After what felt like an eternity to her, the door opened, Minerva walked out and told her to go inside.

Hermione, being quite confused, did as she was told and found herself in a room bigger than you would expect, which was filled with shelves full of books.

Standing in the middle of the room was Severus, a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

"Hermione, I - I am sorry. I should have reacted differently, and I know it is way too late to change that, but I want you to know that I love you and our unborn child. I did not intend to show you this soon. In fact, this was supposed to be a Christmas surprise but well. I am so sorry for leaving you when you needed me the most, but I couldn't tell you, it was too soon. I was here the whole time whenever I wasn't with you. You see, Minerva has given us this house, and so I thought I would renovate it, and then we could probably move in here at some point. Spinner's End really is no place for a family."

Severus ranted and was undeniably nervous about something Hermione did not know anything of.