Hermione woke up in her
double bed and burrowed further under the covers. She was always a little light
headed and sore the day after Severus fed. She should have known better than to
let him indulge on a weeknight. At least she got to bed early last night.
It’s not as if he didn’t
have other means of nourishment. St. Mungo’s supplied him with a potion that
acted as a blood substitute.
What would she be doing if
she was facing a wailing baby right now? There was no way this could be going
on if there was an infant around. There was something she would miss. Lord only
knows what the anticoagulant would do to a fetus.
Why, oh why, had she
forgotten to take the blood replenishing potion last night? Even if she took
one now she’d be light headed all morning.
This ‘child idea’ would
require a lot more thought. A child would be nice, but how good would Severus
be as a vampire father. He was impatient and bossy enough as a teacher. Did
Hermione want to really subject a poor child to his ranting?
Hermione giggled suddenly
at the idea of Severus’ logic being thwarted by a 3 year old wearing a hat,
socks, and little else.
Ron and Luna had three
children. It seemed there was no better humbling an experience than an hour
with the young Weasleys girls, ages 7, 4, and 2, respectively.
Hermione lifted her head
and looked at her clock. She could lie in bed a little while longer. She
relaxed and snuggled further under the white lace covers.
She had become accustomed
to her life. She slept alone. At least, after the sun came up. She reasoned
quite a few women in the world had husbands that left for work at dawn. She
wasn’t missing much.
Except it was like having
a husband that worked overtime every day. With no hope of
vacation.
It was quite an
independent life. Children would certainly change everything. She wouldn’t be
able to be at the beck and call of the Ministry anymore. Some of her research
projects would have to be put on hold or given to someone else once the toddler
years started. Maybe they would give her a small sub-department.
She mused for a moment
about leading an army of researchers to
Hermione shook her head
and threw her covers off. When she stretched, her back crackled.
Baby. They were both mad.
And Neville was mad for
bringing it up. What were he and Dennis thinking?
Neville
Longbottom, helping Snape create little Snapes.
Hermione entertained a
fantasy about using the Time-Turner to tip off her younger self and make some
bets with Lee Jordan. Lee had gotten into his father’s bookmaking business and
was quite successful, from what she heard.
She started at a tap from
the window and turned to see a tawny owl pecking at the glass of her bedroom
window.
Hermione frowned slightly
and went across the room to open her window. Her feet were bare and they made a
faint hollow sound on the hardwood floor.
“Barnabas,” Hermione said
as the owl. “Neville’s never up this early. What are you doing here?”
She unlatched the heavy
wooden window and pushed it open.
The owl hooted happily as
he hopped into the room, waving the scroll tied to one of his legs on every
other hop.
“I get it,” Hermione
sighed as she caught the enthusiastic owl when he lost his balance. She untied
the scroll and smiled as the owl made small cooing sounds and tried to snuggle
close to her.
“Cold
morning?”
Hermione mused to the owl as she cracked the seal on the letter.
The owl hooted crossly.
Hermione chuckled.
Hermione,
I haven’t left the
house, but will shortly. Our whole lab will be moving today and I want to make
sure no one mucks anything up. The whole thing makes me nervous. I want to see
your notes and questions as soon as possible.
Neville
Hermione sighed. It was
going to be a long day.
&+&+
“So what if people can get
pregnant with hollow sperm?” Dennis moaned. They had been discussing the matter
for over an hour.
“It’s a big problem,”
Hermione said seriously. “You can breed for generations without interbreeding
problems. You can have multiple births with every gestation.”
“That would take eons,”
Dennis said, sounding exasperated.
“Not really,” Neville said
darkly. He glanced at Hermione. She looked down at her notes. “If they give the
babies a growth potion and impregnate them as soon as they’re ready you could
have a large army in 2 decades.”
“But they’ll be mentally
behind,” Dennis exclaimed.
“Not if all you care about
is the final generation and not the ones that came before,” Hermione said
quietly.
A look of horror crept
across Dennis’ face.
“That’s disgusting,”
Dennis whispered. “What would they do with the others?”
“Spell components,
probably,” Neville mused.
“Quite,” Hermione said
brusquely. “The Department of Mysteries is willing to research hollows for you,
they’ll delegate it to Team C.”
“Thank God,” Neville
muttered under his breath. “Not like we won’t have enough to do.”
“What we’re going to do is
observe Muggle and Wizarding DNA in hollow sperm of both Muggles and Wizards,”
Hermione said, ignoring him.
“What?” Neville said.
“Well, if you took Muggle
DNA and put in a Wizard’s hollow sperm and it ends up with ag remains ia still made of
matter. magical-”
“It couldn’t possibly,”
Dennis interrupted. “All of the original DNA is
effectively ripped from the sperm.”
“Exactly,” Hermione said.
“But the shell that remains is still made of matter. It still exists after the
purging.”
“What do you mean?”
Neville asked, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes.
“It would prove there is
no gene,” Hermione said.
“Or that are still things
beyond our grasp,” Neville chortled cynically.
“Well, it would stop the
gene project,” Hermione said.
“That would be terribly
convenient,” Dennis said testily. “Since it seems this would
be a more valuable project for the Ministry.”
“10 years of research down
the drain,” Neville said bitterly.
“Oh come on,” Hermione
said, annoyed. “At least you’d have an answer; you shouldn’t have gone into
practical research if you expected all your theories to pan out.”
“You wouldn’t feel that
way if it was your project!” Dennis said angrily.
“Oh
really?”
Hermione said testily. “I supervise all the projects the Ministry decides to
undertake. I get to walk away from all of them.”
“Good point,” Neville
said, smirking at her.
“What do you look so smug
about?” Hermione asked him.
“Brought it all on
yourself, you know,” Neville said. Hermione frowned.
“Undersecretary to the
Minister of Magic,” Dennis mocked. He had a grin plastered to his face.
“Bloody overachiever,”
Neville teased.
“Bugger off, both of you,”
Hermione said annoyed, though her ears were pink.
“Either way, Hermione’s
right,” Neville said reluctantly. Dennis shot him a look and he winced. “Well
what if there’s no gene? Why waste more time?”
Dennis grumbled and looked
over the plans for the new lab.
“Well, you’re much better
funded now,” Hermione said. “Think of it that way.”
“I suppose that’s a
point,” Dennis said, his eyes still on the plans.
“And we get all sorts of
new toys to play with,” Neville suggested. Dennis shrugged, but nodded.
“Can Severus come here
tonight?” Neville asked, turning from Dennis. “I’d like his opinion on a few
things.”
“We don’t have any plans,”
Hermione said.
That wasn’t quite true.
They had spoken briefly about taking a movie in, but they hadn’t decided on
anything.
“Well, let’s adjourn for
now,” Neville said, rubbing his eyes. “I could go for some tea and we need to
finish setting up the lab and copying our notes.”
&+&+
Severus peered through the
magnifier and frowned.
“Just how did you manage
this, Longbottom?” he asked, his voice steady.
Neville paled and turned
white. Then he began explaining the gene research program, the methods of
research they had been using: the traditional, a few Hermione unconventional
methods Hermione had no idea they had been using, and a few that were downright
illegal.
“Neville!” Hermione practically shrieked.
“That’s more than verging on the edge of the Dark Arts! Are you completely mad!”
“It was in the name of
research!” Neville thundered. “And I used my own blood, so there were no
unwilling participants.”
“I can’t believe you let
him do this, Dennis,” Hermione frowned. Dennis winced.
“I recorded everything,
Hermione,” Dennis said reluctantly. “My notes are quite detailed.”
Severus seemed to be sizing
up Neville.
Severus shook his head and
Hermione saw a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. It was there for a
fraction of a second, and then it was gone. He thought this was funny. The ends
justify the means. He was slightly proud, though he’d never admit to it.
Hermione found herself
just as mad at Severus as she was at Neville. She tried not to fume.
“We told you everything,”
Neville said, squeakily. “Really.”
Hermione felt herself
deflate. These weren’t bad men, but wasn’t that always the way it started? She
was still annoyed, but more concerned about what else they were up to.
“Really, Neville,”
Hermione said. “They’re illegal for a reason.”
“That’s a minor potion at
best,” Severus said with a wave of his hand. “Although it
does take a bit of skill.”
Neville blushed. That was
the closest thing to a complement he was likely to get.
“It only took six tries,”
said Dennis, still in a bad mood.
Severus chuckled a bit.
“Well, At least you still have your eyebrows; if that one goes awry it can turn
to an Ever-Burning Flame.”
“Took them 3 weeks to grow
back,” Dennis said, smirking at Neville.
“Bugger off,” Neville
snapped. “It finally worked out alright.”
“So are we seeding the
empties tonight?” Severus asked.
“We better, before they
tell us we can’t,” Neville said quickly.
“When did you start
breaking so many rules?” Hermione exploded.
“When I started hanging
around you,” Neville smirked. “All your fault, you
know.”
Hermione groaned as
Neville plucked a hair from Severus’ head. Severus winced.
“Technically, it’s not a
rule yet and we’re exempt from Dark Arts laws now,” said Dennis, opening a
small vial of brownish liquid. Neville popped the hair into the vial and Dennis
walked away, shaking it.
“So, it’s your blood?”
Hermione said slowly. “Won’t that bind you to the child in some way?”
“We think so,” said
Neville. “But we’re not sure how. Ideally, the blood will be supplied by one of
the prospective parents. We’re not impregnating you with these, so it doesn’t
matter.”
Hermione nodded, then watched as a light pink mist seemed to curl out of the
vial. Neville and Dennis walked over to the dish of hollow sperm and began
chanting.
Severus stiffened next to
her. She wasn’t sure this was a good sign. Then there was a red murky glow and
the lights seemed to dim slightly.
Abruptly, everything went
back to normal.
“OK,” Dennis said. “Now to check for auras.”
Hermione held her breath
as Dennis cast a spell on Severus. He didn’t so much glow, but seemed to be
surrounded by a clinging shadow. Small gold sparks fired off occasionally.
Neville chanted the same
spell over the experiment and began grinning.
“It works.”
“Dear Lord.” Hermione felt
faint. She felt Severus steady her.
“So…” Dennis faltered.
“So…what?” Severus said coldly.
“So if we’re going to do
this we need a drop of blood from one of you,” Neville said sarcastically. “Unless you want to be bound to the Longbottoms.
It would make life easy on me. Gran’s still bugging
me about settling down.”
“Not a chance,” Severus
said flatly.
Hermione held out her
wrist.
“We take it through a
finger,” Dennis said, throwing a look at Severus. Severus tried to look
innocent.
Dennis never approved of
Severus feeding from Hermione. He thought it was dangerous.
“Well, then take it,”
Hermione said, flustered. “Before I change my mind.”
“You know, if you’re not
sure,” Neville said seriously. “We wouldn’t want to push you into anything.”
“I want to have my
husband’s child,” Hermione said, still holding out her hand.
“Well then,” Neville said,
smiling. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”