A Dish Served Cold

Chapter 47 – Aftermath

Hermione was waiting for Severus to get back from his mission in Hogsmeade when the first, rippling pain hit her. She had been pacing, well, waddling really, back and forth through the sitting room, waiting for some word from him. Apparently, there was a tricky illusion that they were going to be performing, and she wasn’t certain exactly what they were up to. She had been a little irritated to be woken from her nap, and hadn’t been paying as close attention to his words as she ought to have.

Severus had told her little, except that Dumbledore was going to be doing something spectacular and it required perfect timing from several people. She was worried, partly because Severus had seemed worried and partly because she always worried when he went on a spying mission.

A number of people had rushed from the castle to go and assist in Hogsmeade and she had another fear as well. She really hoped that none of her well-meaning friends accidentally hurt or killed her husband while he was pretending to be a Death Eater.

Another pain rippled across her belly and she swore to herself as she grabbed up a bottle of Labor’s Relief and downed it. She waited for the effects of the potion to take hold, gagging a little from the aftertaste. A third contraction hit, this one harder than the last and Hermione felt a tinge of panic. Why wasn’t the potion working? She was still a little early, though Madam Tamarind had been far less concerned lately.

The Bloody Baron materialized beside her.

“Madam Snape?” he enquired carefully; he was always so gentle to her these days, trying not to startle or scare her.

“I think that I am having the baby right now,” Hermione replied, fear raising the pitch of her voice.

“We must get you to the Mediwitch,” he answered and she nodded back to him. The contractions were coming faster now and she was hard pressed to keep standing, she wasn’t at all certain that she could walk all the way to the Hospital Wing.

Warm liquid gushed between her legs and she looked down to see the skirts of her school robe soaked through. The pain intensified and she looked at the ghost with a bitter smile.

“How are you at delivering babies?” she asked, and the Baron went nearly transparent in shock.

“I’ll fetch the midwife, you remain here!” he wailed and vanished immediately.

“Men,” she groused, and made her stumbling way to the garish green and silver couch. She hoped to heaven that the fabric didn’t stain, because this baby was coming and there was nothing she could do about it.

Maggie settled the red-haired infant into Luna’s arms again and tucked her breast into his hungry mouth.
“Now, if he doesn’t latch on properly, put your finger into his mouth and break the suction, before trying to remove him and getting him to re-latch,” she instructed. Luna nodded, her dreaminess temporarily replaced with intense concentration.

The Slytherin House ghost materialized beside them suddenly and Maggie let out a squeak of surprise. He looked awful, even more ragged and bloody than usual.

“Madame Snape is having the baby, right now!” he announced, as close to panic as she had ever seen a spirit.

“Lead the way!” she answered. With a wand wave and a shouted “Accio bag!” she had her kit and was racing downstairs after the agitated ghost.

Ron was staring at the ashes, which were all that was left of Albus Dumbledore. Tonks and Kingsley stood beside him, both looking sad and lost. Mrs. Dumbledore, her face an emotionless mask to hide her grief, was directing those nearby to help in patching up Hogsmeade after the destructive battle, and arranging for those Death Eaters that had been captured to be secured properly and held for the Aurors.

Ron knew that everyone was suffering from shock; he could barely force his eyes away from the still smoking ashes, and most people were milling about aimlessly.

Looking over at the edge of the group, Ron could see Harry, his face white and pale, his eyes bleak. He wanted to go over to him, comfort him, but he was trapped into a kind of frozen immobility. He watched Mrs. Dumbledore put an arm around Harry and lead him away, back to the castle, and he found himself moving after them. He had to get back to Luna and little Gideon; he had to tell them what had happened.

Harry felt the hand on his shoulder, heard the soft words in his ear, and responded dully to the pressure that was moving him away from the scene of Dumbledore’s immolation. He wasn’t entirely certain who was guiding him and a sudden concern for his own safety awoke in him. He looked up and into the sad, brown eyes of Sabine Dumbledore.

He realized suddenly, that he wasn’t alone in his grief and that eased something inside of him. He leaned against her, her presence reassuring and solid. She was tall and thin, but she was steady and there was a wellspring of strength that he knew he could draw upon.

“I can’t believe that he’s gone,” Harry murmured.

“Then don’t,” the elderly lady whispered back to him. In shock, Harry looked up at her and saw a sly look on her face. “Calmly now, little one,” she added and he schooled his face to blankness.

His mind raced as he tried to understand. Was she saying that that the Headmaster wasn’t dead? But, he had seen Dumbledore die!

“Is he okay?” he asked, trying to be vague, in case anyone was listening, but needing a concrete answer desperately.

“How is your Occlumency?” she enquired, with a lifted brow and he pulled the discipline around himself tightly, closing his mind off.

“Pretty good these days,” he answered and she nodded.

“He’s well and safe.” The words eased the tightness in his guts and drove away the burning tears that had been threatening to overwhelm him.

“I assume there was a reason for all this?” Harry asked with a touch of irritation. He had been nearly destroyed by the thought of the Headmaster’s death, and he was really hoping there was a damned good explanation for putting him through all of this.

They had reached the school and were heading towards Dumbledore’s tower and he could see the news spreading from student to student. Faces fell and tears erupted all around them and it was hard not to call out that it was okay to them.

Mrs. Dumbledore gestured him to the staircase and he took it that she would answer his questions somewhere less public. That pleased him, because he had an urge to start screaming right now and doing it in public might be a bad idea.

Hermione was taking ex-Minister Fudge’s name in vain. There was very little actual pain; Wizarding Medicine had dealt with that issue centuries before the Muggle world had. Having women who could hex your balls off made for an excellent incentive for coming up with pain killers for labor. Still, the effort of pushing out a football was no small thing.

“Good job, Hermione, now push again!” Mistress Tamarind’s voice was gentle and encouraging, but Hermione still had an urge to box her ears. She had been floated up to the Hospital Wing and tucked into one of the beds quite tenderly, but she still felt ill-used, nonetheless. In all these centuries, couldn’t the Wizarding World have figured out a way to skip this part altogether?

“I am pushing!” she ground out between gritted teeth.

“I know Hermione, it’s going to be long hard work, but I know that you can do this. You are progressing normally, no complications, everything textbook perfect,” Mistress Tamarind chanted softly and Hermione felt a moment’s satisfaction at that. “Come on, just one more!” she urged.

“That’s what you said an hour ago!” Hermione grunted. She felt like she was passing a boulder at this point and it was stuck tight. She would never be done with the endless pushing and even sweet-natured Madame Tamarind seemed rather malevolent to her right now.

There was a feeling like she was going to explode and then a sudden cessation of pain. Madame Tamarind reach down and lifted a soggy, bloody mess from between her legs and Hermione wondered what she was supposed to feel.

A few cleansing and warming charms later, the child was tucked into her arms. Cleanliness made a huge difference, she noted.

Hermione was staring down at the little girl in her arms with wonder and delight. Though the birthing process left a child looking rather like a squashed cabbage, seeing the wisps of black hair and the huge dark eyes blinking myopically up at her seemed to make the rest rather a moot point. Then she saw the fingers, clenched tightly into tiny fists, and noted that they were the most perfect beautiful fingers in the whole world. A tiny foot moved and Hermione was abruptly fascinated by the toes.

“So tiny…” The Bloody Baron was hovering nearby and his whispered words jerked Hermione back to reality. She was a mother.

There was a moment of sheer terror as she tired to figure out what one did exactly with a baby and then Madame Tamarind had taken over and the child was being put in nappies and a small gown, and then handed back to be cuddled and stroked to sleep. Hermione’s hands moved awkwardly as she soothed the child, but it seemed enough for her daughter to be next to her and the infant was quickly asleep.

Madame Tamarind tucked her into a bassinet beside the bed and Hermione slumped back exhausted.

“I’m so tired,” she complained and the Mediwitch nodded.

“Pushing out a baby will do that to you,” the reply was coupled with a grin and Hermione chortled, and then winced, her belly still sore.

“Sorry,” the midwife apologized. “You get some rest; Toddy will watch the baby while you sleep.” Hermione wanted to protest about the presence of the House Elf that popped into existence beside the bassinet, but was too tired to marshal her arguments into a cogent form.
She’d have Severus take care of it when he came back.

Ginny clung to her husband with a feeling of profound relief. Professor McGonagall had levitated the stone rabbit and was examining it with an irritated frown, but Ginny was just happy that Remus wasn’t dead.

Or infected. She shuddered and clung just a bit harder to him.

“Gently now, I am somewhat breakable, you know,” he teased with a gentle tone and she turned her face up to be kissed. He obliged with alacrity and they were quickly lost in each other.

“Ahem,” the doughty Transfigurations teacher interrupted and they broke apart with a touch of embarrassment. She rolled her eyes at them and Ginny could have sworn that the older women muttered something about “young people” under her breath.

“We need to update the Headmaster on our situation,” Remus suggested and Professor McGonagall nodded, a short, sharp gesture, and they strode out of the wreckage of her little home and into a scene of misery and despair.

Maggie stood in the center of the room feeling lost. Dumbledore had been one of the few constants in her life for so long, that the thought that he wouldn’t be there anymore was too big to take in. She was already exhausted from assisting with the Snape delivery and this extra blow was just too much.

Nearby, Georgian was staring into the fireplace with a face as lost and sad as her own. She had known that he and the Headmaster had been friends, but she had always been uncertain of the depths of their affection.

“You knew him well, didn’t you?” she asked gently and he looked up at her in surprise, as if he was only just realizing that she was there.

“When my father’s actions came to light, there were only two people who did not abandon me, Severus and Albus,” he replied through white lips. He looked to be in shock and she sat down beside him on the settee. She slipped an arm around his shoulders and he leaned against her, as vulnerable and lost as a child.

He had always seemed utterly unshakable, a tower amidst the tempest, but here she was, giving him some of her strength in this moment when he suddenly and abruptly was revealed to be merely human after all.

Warmth in her heart and tears prickling in her eyes, Maggie Tamarind held her husband and felt a great weight of fear lifted from her.

Despite everything, they were going to be all right.

Severus stood, radiating a humble satisfaction at his one-time master. As the one who had cast the Incendio spell at Dumbledore at the critical moment of his distraction and weakness, Severus enjoyed the Dark Lord’s favor for the moment. It was easier to project joy and pleasure today than it normally was, because he had the gleeful secret knowledge that he had put one over on Voldemort.

“Gone! Gone at last! Now we can truly begin our liberation of the Wizarding World! No more will the sniveling slaves of the Ministry have their great weapon against us. No more will we be beaten back from restoring the supremacy of Wizard kind, by that miserable Muggle-lover, Dumbledore.” The last part was spat out with a venomous hatred that even death could not erase.

The rumble of approving voices that greeted Voldemort’s speech was tinged with an undercurrent of bloodlust that made the inner Severus shiver. Dumbledore’s existence had been a barrier between the baser instincts of some of the Death Eaters and their actual crimes. Just knowing that the Hogwarts Headmaster might find you some day had leashed certain instincts and kept the crimes within the more usual avenues of murder and theft.

With Dumbledore safely gone, other, more bestial instincts could be given free rein. Severus knew that he had to act quickly, before the others had too much time to think about their new freedoms.

“What are your orders, My Lord?” he asked Voldemort with an eager voice, as though straining at the leash, ready to tear out the throats of his master’s enemies.

Voldemort seemed surprised by the question, as though, he too was pondering the lack of restriction upon him. Not that the former Tom Riddle had been the carnal sort, his obsession was with evading death, not with satisfying his lusts. Bellatrix was far more likely to indulge in sexual sadism and she was the one that Severus most feared.

“Yes,” Voldemort drawled, as his mind began to turn over the many options before them. His face, never exactly attractive since his latest transformation, became a mask of true ugliness as he pondered. The slitted nostrils flared and the gray, twig like fingers moved restlessly across the tabletop before him, as though he were moving invisible chess pieces.

“We can attack the Ministry without fear,” Bellatrix chortled, clapping her hands like a child being given a treat.

“Potter first, though, of course,” hissed Pettigrew with an expression of mixed fear and loathing. The humiliation that he had suffered at James’ son’s hands had lingered in that twisted little mind, and his hatred of Potter was almost as great as his fear of the boy. Severus wondered how much of the hatred was guilt turned inside out. In a mind unused to coping with anything more stressful than cringing before the most powerful person in the room, Pettigrew must have far too many conflicting thoughts and feelings to keep track of easily.

“Yes, Potter,” Voldemort drew out the words with a sibilance that was not entirely human. Even Bellatrix looked a little nervous as Voldemort’s eyes focused inwardly with a cold, reptilian pleasure reflecting thoughts that were both disturbing and alien.

“We will need to get him out of Hogwarts, even without Dumbledore, the wards there are formidable,” Severus suggested with a thoughtful air, as though he were plotting on the fly, rather than reciting the carefully rehearsed phrases that his crafty grandmother had suggested.

“Yes, an excellent point,” Voldemort approved. The warm beaming smile that Voldemort aimed towards him made Severus feel vaguely impatient. How could anyone with that much raw talent and power be so appallingly stupid? However, considering that the rest of Slytherin’s descendants had been little better than in-bred hillbillies before the prodigal son had returned to scrape them off the face of the earth, it stood to reason that the very limited gene-pool had produced yet another narcissistic, paranoid sociopath, only this time with the added dimension of delusions of grandeur.

“How are we to get him to leave Hogwarts?” Bellatrix asked, her eyes narrowed with the effort of thought.

“It would require very powerful bait,” Severus gently suggested; pretending to be perplexed was a little harder, but best not to dangle the solution too obviously. If everything went poorly, it would be best not to be remembered as the one whose plane this was.

“Perhaps we could say that some item capable of defeating your lordship was to be found somewhere?” Pettigrew offered, peering up at the Dark Lord through his scraggly mane with a look of vapid cunning.

“Nothing can defeat the Dark Lord!” Severus scolded, assuring that the plan would fall squarely on Pettigrew.

“You are, of course, right Severus, but the boy is young and foolish. A lie such as that might make him come to the place of our time and choosing.” Voldemort pondered the question and then nodded sharply. “I think I know how this must be done,” he concluded and as he spoke Severus was torn between admiration for his grandmother and a sort of disgust that Voldemort could be so appallingly stupid.

And to think that he had been sorted into Slytherin, it was downright embarrassing.