Chapter 23 – Week 21 continued (January 13th, specifically)

Pomfrey – Hermes (Jan 13, 1992 – 10:14 am)

“I’m Hermes John Granger, first year Slytherin and all around son-of-a-bitch bastard to anyone and everyone.  No one takes advantage of me.  No one hurts me or mine. I fear nothing and no one here.  You can’t hurt me.  You can’t stop me.  You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.  No one has power over me that I have not allowed them to have.  No one gets away with scaring me.  I am a boy.  I am a man.  I will find a way to make that happen, and you of all people won’t be stopping me!”

“If you’re going to punish me, do it,” He said with more confidence than he felt.  “If not, you’re going to have to open the doors, because I want out.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Pomfrey said in a clear voice.

He watched as her wand disappeared into her sleeve with a flick of a petite wrist. Then the small woman turned to a nearby bed and sat down with a gracefulness that he could only be envious of. 

“Now then, Hermes?”  She asked with a raised eyebrow not dissimilar to one of Snape’s own.

He nodded dumbly at her sudden shift in demeanour. 

“I won’t address why you were in my infirmary at this hour.   Not right now.  Though, I suspect it has something to do with a certain Miss Murphy,” She trailed off and looked at him with an unreadable expression.  “But I see now why Hogwarts herself notified me of your presence here.  Not for disciplinary reasons,” She raised a hand when he opened his mouth to try and speak.  “No, because you’re not just another student, are you?” 

“No,” He whispered. 

His eyes were wide as he tried to process what the woman in front of him was saying. 

Hogwarts told her I was here?  What’s going on?  Why does she care?  The questions shot through his mind at an alarming rate.

“I thank you for letting me into your confidence,” She said, smiling at him. 

Her face was one of sincerity and it made him turn away, tears suddenly coming to his eyes. 

“Does Professor Snape know?”  She had stood up, but was still a respectful distance from him.

. . .

Professor Snape’s quarters, 12:08 pm

“Little one?”

Large hands were picking him up, and he clung to the warmth of the robes around him.

“Why are you wearing my robes from last Thursday?”

“Warm,” Came his half-conscious reply.  “Smell good,” He added, grasping the neck in front of him and latching on with surprising strength.

Those hands shifted under his legs, shifting his body weight to rest upon a hip.

Blinking slowly, he yawned and opened his eyes. 

“You look real tired, Papa Pa,” Was his candid remark.

“I’m likely to be more so before the end of the day, little one,” Severus answered roughly with an uncharacteristically gravelly sound in his voice.

His Papa Pa had circles under his eyes and his pale face looked almost jaundiced in the pale candlelight flickering on the nearby side table.

Sensing that now was not the time to demand that the man take a nap, Harry cocked his head to the side and asked, “What we doin’ now, daddy Sev?”

“We are having lunch, and then you are going to class.  My classes have been cancelled for the next day or so.  Madame Bones has insisted on my help, and she is likely drafting Hadwyn as well.”

“What kinda help, Daddy Sev?”  Harry asked, perking up and shimmying out of his Papa Pa’s robes. 

They fell to the floor in a heap and Severus gave him an affronted look before putting him down. 

“I assume you know better than to leave my robes on the ground?”

“Yes sir!” Harry chirped, tripping over them in his haste to put them back in the laundry. 

Beside him, Goldie blinked her eyes awake and nibbled on his shirttail when he didn’t immediately respond. 

“You hungry too, Goldie Gold?”

She nickered softly and stood up slowly.  The baby in her head was demanding nutrition as well, and Goldie fought with herself to keep the hunger from taking control of her emotions. 

The last thing she wanted to do was hurt her Harry. 

His daddy handed him his glasses, and they walked to the dining table.  His Papa Pa watched with some interest as Goldie demanded to be fed first, hardly letting him get a bite in-between that and her sudden need for attention. 

Severus watched the byplay between Harry and the foal with some concern.  Privately, he wondered if this abrupt shift in behaviour was a result of the oddity of the day or perhaps the unheard of phenomenon currently residing in her consciousness. 

Or perhaps both.

Really though, he would count his blessings if this was the only negative side effect.  He had a feeling though that this was just the beginning, and in his heart of hearts, he sighed. 

Before checking on Harry, he had swung by the Slytherin common room.  He knew better than to leave them unattended on a day like this one.  As far as Mondays went, it certainly ranked in the top ten as one of the worst ones ever.  It certainly hadn’t improved when one of his prefects had informed him that both Marcus Flint and Tarquin McTavish were missing from morning rollcall.  Add that to the anonymous note that one of the Ravenclaws had slipped in with the potions kits, and his mood was further soured. 

Harry’s observation that he looked tired had been a bit of an understatement.  It was barely noon, and he was bone deep exhausted.  Furthermore, his heart hurt every time his thoughts strayed to the deathly pale girl in the infirmary. 

Would she have tried to kill herself over an unwanted pregnancy?  His gut said no. 

Were Tarquin McTavish and Marcus Flint involved?  Or were they just being difficult on a day already fraught with complications?  He didn’t know. 

They did have a tendency to be involved with badly timed catastrophes, but attempted murder seemed a bit farfetched for them.  Tarquin was a bit of a thug, but other than skipping classes and drinking to excess, he didn’t usually cause too many big problems.  Like a great number of his snakes, Tarquin preferred that his exploits stayed out of the limelight that so many Gryffindors seems to thrive in. 

The thought of Gryffindors brought his mind back to the girl in the infirmary.  Where had she gotten the belladonna from?  She couldn’t have gotten it from outside.  She couldn’t even have gotten inside the wards with it.  Had she taken it off-campus?  There hadn’t been a Hogsmeade weekend yet; the term had just started the previous week. 

He’d have to ask Albus to check the book that recorded movements over the edge of the wards.  It was generally too much of a pain to look at, considering there was a record written every time a bird flew across the ward boundary.  However, in this case, there was good reason to wade through the written detritus. 

If she had taken it off campus, how had she had found her way back on without anyone noticing? 

“Papa Pa?”  Harry’s voice broke through his mental mutterings, and he looked up to realise that it was nearly time for the boy to go to class.

“Child?”

“I don’t think I can help nones, but maybe I can give you a hug?   Would that be okay?”  Harry asked, moving to stand next to him with a hopeful expression. 

His face worked its way into a semblance a smile and he reached out to pull the boy close. 

“I love you, daddy Sev,” Harry’s voice was muffled from where his face was pressed into Severus’ shoulder, but he understood it well enough.

“And I you, little one.  Fret not; we will work this out soon enough.”

. . .

An abandoned classroom near Professor Snape’s office, 4:29 pm

“Merlin’s saggy balls!” Severus muttered to himself. 

In front of him were piles of the most disorganized Potions kits he’d ever had the misfortune of seeing to.  Across the room, Hadwyn and Smythe were muttering darkly over their own kits. 

Smythe was a junior healer from St. Mungo’s who had been dumped on him from Amelia Bones.  Thankfully, the man was a former Ravenclaw, and had not only scored an O on his Potions’ N.E.W.T., but was also in possession of a caustic wit, not too dissimilar to Severus’ own.

“That’s it.”  Severus spat out. 

He stood up and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Next lesson for all students is going to be devoted to the care and upkeep of their Potions kits.  I do not care if they are first years or seventh.  Everyone is getting their work up to snuff. Everyone,” He growled, sitting back down with a thump.

They went back to work for a long while until a breathless exclamation from across the room caught Severus’ attention.

“What?  What did you find?”  He asked, pushing his way to Smythe’s side.

“Atropa belladonna.  You said she had been poisoned by Atropa belladonna, right, Professor?”  Smythe’s blue eyes made contact with his own for a brief moment before dropping back down to the kit in front of him. 

“Correct.  What of it?”

“And she was pregnant?  But with no previous signs of depression or anxiety?”

“Madam Pomfrey confirmed this, yes.  As did her friends and dorm mates.  Not that depression is always so obvious, of course,” Severus answered, the last part spoken mostly to himself. 

Hadwyn glanced at him, his eyes telling Severus that he understood.

“What is your theory, Mister Smythe?” Severus asked, putting his hands behind his back in an attempt to seem less intimidating.

“What if she wasn’t trying to kill herself, sir?  What if she was just trying to kill the baby?”

“Abortion,” Hadwyn voiced aloud. 

“She knew she was pregnant, and she tried to take something.  You said yourself that she was a terrible Potions student.  What if she took something and thought it was one thing, but it turned out to be the belladonna?  I have personally seen many cases at St. Mungos where young witches—and older ones too—have made . . .” Smythe trailed off, sucking on his bottom lip as he tried to find the right word.  “Poor decisions.  Some of which didn’t have to be made.  They had access to more safe and sure methods, but because of their fear for those around them knowing of their predicament, they tried to take on the problem by themselves.”

“Perhaps Bones made a wise decision adding you to our team,” Severus admitted with a growing sense of respect for the man beside him.

“Perhaps she was trying to get someone to spy on you for her.  It’s not a secret that we hated each other,” Smythe answered wryly. 

“I’ve never hated any student of mine,” Severus retorted hotly.

“Despised, despaired of, maligned, worried over endlessly—,” Hadwyn started before being cut off with a flash of dark eyes. 

“Do not start something with which you do not intend to finish, Healer Long,” Severus warned in a low voice.

Smythe merely raised his eyebrows and smirked at the antics of the men surrounding him. 

“May I continue?”  Smythe asked after a moment.

“Please,” Hadwyn said, making a shooing motion with his hands.

“The problem then is this.  What did she think she was taking?”

Severus crossed his arms and sat down atop one of the desks scattered throughout the room.   

“Just out of curiosity, Mr Smythe, what other . . . things do young desperate women try?  Do they try the same things?  What are the most common?” 

Smythe leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes staring into the distance as he thought. 

“Powdered Doxy eggs, undiluted Bundimun secretions, unfermented Erumpent fluid—.” 

“Really!?”  Severus interrupted, more than a little shocked that anyone could be so idiotic.

“Yes.  That last one is particularly hard to treat, giving the penchant for inducing internal explosions.”

Severus grasped the bridge of his nose tightly between thumb and forefinger. 

“I doubt that I want to know, but continue, please.  I . . . apologize for my outburst.”

Smythe’s eyebrows rose at his former professor’s apology, but he chose not to draw attention to it.   He felt that Healer Long’s smirk more than said enough for them both. 

“I’ve had more than a dozen cases where the witch in question ingested various magical cleaners in the hopes that something would induce a sudden abortion.  My mentor told me that he once had to treat a woman for tapeworms after she purposely tried to spell them into her uterus.”

Hadwyn’s face showed only horror at Smythe’s last statement, and Snape’s was hardly any better.  His lips were pressed so tightly together that he feared the man might hurt himself. 

“Of course,” Smythe’s quiet voice broke the horrified silence that had fallen between them.  “There’s also a number of old witch’s tales that get bandied about.  They range in variety from throwing one’s self down the stairs to drinking gin in a hot bath.” 

Smythe rolled his head to the side, and Severus flinched at the loud crack it made. 

“Perhaps the worst was from a woman who told me that to induce a miscarriage one only had to walk over the grave of a suicide.  Of course, the potency of this method increases if you happened to actually know the person . . .” Smythe trailed off. 

“Bloody hell,” Hadwyn whispered. 

. . .

Knocturn Alley, outside of Podric Batworthy’s Beard Trimming Shoppe, 4:49pm

A scream rent the air as a badly splinched young wizard suddenly apparated into the alleyway in front of Podric Batworthy’s establishment. 

“Bloody hell, boy!”  Podric cursed, levitating his nephew’s mangled body through his shop and up the stairs to his small apartment.  “Are you trying to cause a scene, or are you just this bleeding stupid!?”

With another flick of his wand, he turned the open sign to the closed side and then locked the door.  If his nephew hadn’t killed himself with that stunt, then he’d do it himself.  He scowled at the trail of blood behind him and whistled for his house elf. 

His sister owed him.  Big. 

. . .

An abandoned classroom near Professor Snape’s office, 5:03 pm

“This is getting us nowhere,” Severus growled at the potion kit he’d been staring at unseeingly for the past fifteen minutes. 

“Thought,” Hadwyn’s soft voice cut through Severus’ frustration.

“Say it.”

Hadwyn crossed the room to a dusty blackboard and scourgified it.  He conjured a piece of chalk from a dust bunny and turned to the board. 

“Give me a list of any known herbal abortifacients and crosscheck with the ingredients in the kits.  We need to get out of this rut before we lose track of what we’re trying to figure out,” Hadwyn pointed out. 

Silence, then Smythe spoke first.

“Bayberries.” 

Hadwyn wrote it on the board and Severus scowled.

“What?” Hadwyn demanded when he saw Severus’ face.

“We don’t use them since the discovery that crushed billywigs work just as well in every potion that previously demanded them.”

“When was that discovered?”  Smythe interjected with some interest.

“1320.”

“Okay then, what else?”

Another ten minutes and they had a long list written across the board in Hadwyn’s choppy handwriting.  It only took an additional minute for Severus to cross off the herbs that weren’t used in Potions. 

“Cotton root bark, Pennyroyal, Juniper, English Yew, Partridge and Goji berries,” Hadwyn read aloud. 

“We could have just started with the kits themselves,” Severus complained.

“We tried that.  It was getting us nowhere fast.  Now we have something to focus on,” Hadwyn countered in a patient voice. 

Severus scowled and started walking toward the door.

“Where are you going?”  Hadwyn called out after him.

“To check on my son!”

The door slammed and Smythe looked at Hadwyn with a startled expression. 

“Son?”