Chapters 241-250

Summer Sadness, Summer Joy

In Fore Close, wizarding London, Severus Snape settled at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and eyed the cradle that held two identical, red-faced, dark-haired babies with apprehension. Lois and Alina sat next to them, both looking tired.

Lois smiled at him over the rim of her teacup. ‘Now that you’ve met the next generation of mischief-makers—how are you? Is there any news?’

Severus stared at the sleeping infants. The one on the left was drooling a little. It was hard to imagine that he’d face them in his dungeons in eleven years. They wouldn’t even need the toy cauldrons he’d brought them for several years yet, he realised.

He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

How often had he given this answer during the last seventeen months? But before he could add anything, an unpleasant odour flowed through the room. The right baby opened his mouth, showing moist red gums and started whining.

‘Oh, dear,’ Lois sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Severus, but I think Kuno needs to be changed…again.’ She picked up the squalling baby and hurried away.

Alina wrinkled her nose.

her quill scribbled.

Severus shuddered. After a few minutes, he wondered what was taking so long. Molly had returned to Order meetings almost instantly when one of her babies needed new nappies. But of course—without magic, Lois had to do everything Muggle-style. Severus frowned. He knew what Hermione would do…But he didn’t particularly care for Ronald Weasley. On the other hand, he did like Lois.

‘Winky!’

With a POP! the house-elf appeared, magnificent in starched lace-aprons. ‘Master Professor Sir has called?’

‘Yes,’ Severus said curtly. ‘This is the home of Lois Petrel-Weasley, Ronald Weasley and their children. You know Miss Alina Petrel. And this is Mr. Hugo Weasley.’

He indicated the baby. Awake now, Hugo was testing the full capacity of his tiny lungs with extraordinary success.

‘Mrs. Petrel-Weasley is in the other room with his brother Kuno.
‘You need more work.
‘There’s not much to do at Spinner’s End. Therefore I want you to help out here. Mrs. Petrel is a Muggle, so she needs magic help with these babies.’

Winky’s eyes had started glowing the moment Severus uttered the words ‘You need more work’. Before Severus could finish, Winky was already cuddling Hugo and cooing to him.

oooOooo

At the end of July Severus had news.

…Abbé Nihel had discovered an American actress who was ‘finding herself’ (and conveniently escaping bad publicity after a court-scandal because of drunk driving)in a luxuriously appointed hermitage of a Carthusian monastery in Spain.

oooOooo

The summer 2002 was very hot. The heat even seeped through the thick walls of Hermione’s prison. Her cell turned into an oven as the tiny window allowed almost no breeze inside. Hermione rarely bothered with getting up and dressing anymore. Now and again she rose and staggered to the sink, sprinkling tepid water over her naked body.

Apart from that, she lay on her mattress and stared at the wall.

The wall was mostly white, with tiny grey and translucent grains interspersed in the stone. Slight shadows marked the traces where tools had cut and smoothed the rock.

Sometimes she dreamt of Severus.

oooOooo

In the middle of August, Abbé Nihel flushed out a group of fraudsters in Sicily. Importing cheap olive oil from Africa and selling it as expensive organic oil ‘extra vergine’ from the olive groves of the Abbazia delle Colomba Bianca, they had made a fortune (especially thanks to generous subsidies of the European Union).

After that incident, the Abbé had to continue his investigations in France, as the monks and nuns of Italian monasteries seemed suddenly disinclined to converse with him.

oooOooo

During that summer, Severus spent more time with babies than ever before in his life. Since he was still tutoring Alina, there was no away to avoid Hugo and Kuno. Then there was Draco’s son, just starting to walk. While Scorpius was used to the ghost’s icy touch by now, Draco preferred to have a living person nearby on visitation weekends—just in case.

And since Draco was painstakingly piecing together all evidence concerning the events that led to Hermione’s capture, Severus spent as much time with Draco as possible; answering questions, reading old documents or drawing up Arithmantic diagrams, while he waited for the next message from Abbé Nihel.

Last but not least, as August went by, Severus couldn’t help noticing that it must be just a matter of weeks until Ginny Potter would see to it that a new generation of Potters would eventually roam the grounds of Hogwarts and get on his nerves.

Sometimes Severus recalled how Hermione had shocked him with her announcement that she desired to conceive his child.

oooOooo

At the secret summer party of the Order of the Phoenix (a party that was such a conspiratorial occasion that the Daily Prophet ran feature about it on its front page) Lois handed Severus a baby before she went to hug Ginny. Squealing and giggling, the two women compared the sizes of their babies. At two and a half months, Kuno was visibly bigger than tiny James-Hermes, his ten days old cousin.

Meanwhile, Severus gingerly held a smiling, gurgling Hugo Weasley and couldn’t help wondering what his and Hermione’s children might have looked like.

oooOooo

Hermione never noticed how August turned to September, how first the start of a new school year at Hogwarts and then her birthday slipped by.

But it was not as hot as it had been, and her dreams grew quieter.

oooOooo

On September 22, Severus received an urgent Floo call from London.

When he burst into the office of the Minister of Magic, still brushing ashes from his robes, Abbé Nihel Servais Rigaud was already there, waiting for him.

‘I think I have found her.’