Strange Love.

I own nothing. The fantabulous JK Rowling does. I'm just playing for a little while.

Hermione Granger sat in the Hogwarts infirmary, the tiny bundle gurgling sleepily in her arms. He was so perfect. He had ten little fingers and ten little toes, piercing eyes and a shock of black hair that contrasted brilliantly with his pale peaches and cream complexion. He was a beautiful little boy and no matter the circumstances of his birth he was hers...he was actually her son. She could hardly believe that at the tender age of twenty five she was holding her own little boy protectively in her arms but there she was, exhausted after ten hours in labour in the castle where she was now a teacher, with the child she had been left alone to carry and protect in the months leading up to his much anticipated birth.

She couldn't blame the father for leaving, after all he was never someone she pictured to be a family man. Having a relationship with her had been hard enough for him for him to adjust to and after three years he still wasn't quite there with being the devoted partner to a woman who he still somewhat seldomly professed to love. The baby had come as a complete shock to the both of them when she had shown him the positive pregnancy test she had held in her shaking hands, but whereas Hermione had immediately warmed to the idea of the little life she was carrying inside of her, he had found himself even more terrified of commitment than usual and the day after she had told him of their unborn child's existence she woke to find a note on his pillow filled with news of his departure and his deepest apologies.

The pregnancy had gone smoothly, even with the stress and anger she felt due to being abandoned by the man she loved with all of her heart. She had never expected to love him, she had never expected to carry his child, at most she had only expected their union to be brief, passionate and meaningless but over time she had grown to see a side of him that she fell more and more in love with every day, particularly when he softened to her, whispered his deepest feelings into her ears and let her see the man he had spent so long burying deep inside. Now he was gone and she was unsure as to whether the feelings she had for him had only ever really been one sided; but then again if they were, why did he stay with her as long as he did?

Hermione was torn from her thoughts by loud voices in the doorway. Madam Pomfrey could be heard arguing with someone. The voice was familiar and one which shook her to the core. Just seconds later the father of her child stood in front of her, his mouth open in stunned silence, his arms limp at his sides as he looked at her cradling his child in her arms.

"I'm so very sorry Miss Granger. He says he's the boy's father." The medi witch told the young woman breathlessly, with an apologetic expression on her face.

Hermione looked at the little one in her arms, at the beautiful but crooked nose and the black curls that already covered his head. There was no mistaking that her boy was his son. None at all.

"Boy? I have a son?" The man asked as he took a step closer to the bed. He studied the child with his piercing eyes.

Madam Pomfrey picked up her wand as if to hex him but Hermione held up a hand, her son still carefully cradled against her chest.

"No...Poppy please...he is the boy's father. It's all right. But you don't have a son Severus. You lost every right to call yourself his father when you walked out on me while I was carrying him."

Hermione looked at her son, then Snape and then the medi witch. Understanding the look she was being given Madam Pomfrey walked to the doorway, leaving the family in peace.

"I'll be by the door Miss Granger. Call if you need anything." Madam Pomfrey told her as she eyed Snape carefully. She had seen the state Hermione had been in after Severus left her and she wasn't about to let him hurt the young woman again.

Severus stood quietly, looking at the young woman and the infant. Unsure as to whether to stay where he was or walk over to his newborn son he decided to stay where he was, a place he could hurt no-one any more than he already had. He found himself aching to hold her as he stood there, the woman he had so easily left behind, and being apart from his son was almost intolerable to him. Somewhere along his most recent path in life he had fallen in love, and stupidly he had thrown it all away.

"What are you doing here Severus?" Hermione asked him, her voice filled with anger and tiredness as well as the shock of finding herself face to face with the man she thought she had loved and lost. "You left with barely more than a few lines on a piece of parchment and now here you are..."

"I had to see him. I had to see you both." He told her softly, watching as his little boy grabbed his mothers fingers in his tiny hands. Hermione looked at him so tenderly that Severus felt like his heart could melt.

"As you can see we're both fine. You can go now." Hermione told him as she stroked her little boy's cheek. "He doesn't need an absent father Severus. I don't need an absent partner. You made your choice the day you left us."

"I was scared. I needed to be sure that I was father material. I needed to be sure that I could be what you needed." Severus told her honestly thinking back to all the lonely nights he had spent thinking about her and their child and wishing that he was back at Hogwarts experiencing the pregnancy with her; the woman he loved.

"And you proved that day that you aren't. You never could be. You're too selfish" She snapped.

The little boy started to cry and Hermione's face crumpled.

"Let me take him..." Severus pleaded, stepping closer to the bed, his arms ready to cradle his son for the first time.

"There is no way that I'm going to let you hold my son." Hermione told him tearfully as she comforted the little boy. "You only end up hurting the people you hold. You're not partner material and you're most certainly not father material no matter what feelings made you come back here."

Severus knew he deserved that but the words still tore at his heart. It was true. All he did was hurt people and he knew that it was a habit he had to break if he didn't want to end up old and alone with the black heart he had carried for as long as he could remember.

"He's my boy Hermione. I came back for him and I came back for you. I've asked to be Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher again so I can be here with you both...as a family."

"You don't know what family is. How could you? You will never love him. You will never love me. Things will get hard and off you'll run again leaving me to pick up the pieces."

"I will never leave you again you silly girl don't you understand?" He pleaded realising as soon as he'd said those words that he'd made her more angry.

"You left me the day after I told you about him Severus. I loved you. I never had a problem telling you that...but you...you ran away from our child and from me without me ever really knowing how you felt."

"I am a fool for leaving. I don't deny it...but I needed to do it so I could come to terms with becoming a father. Me. Severus Snape a father? don't you realise what a far fetched notion that is?! I sent an OWL every two days to find out how you were and how the child was. How do you think I found out that you were in labour? The minute that Owl came into my hands I knew that I could stay away no longer." He told her, a smile creeping on his face as his little boy yawned softly in his mother's arms. How could he have walked away from this? How could he have been so scared as to try and live his life without his love and his child?

Hermione looked at him, curiosity overcoming the anger that had been brewing inside her.

"You sent OWLs? Who to? People saw how much you hurt me. They saw me pregnant and alone."

"There's only one person here who understands me enough, other than you, to know why I did what I did. How I needed to be sure..."

"Harry...Harry's been..." Hermione whispered, truly stunned at the realisation. Of course Harry had helped him, on the day they lost so many, on the day she almost lost Severus, Harry had seen some of Snapes deepest thoughts. Of course he understood the man enough to want to help him.

"Keeping me updated about my son. Yes. Hermione I am so very sorry that I left you and our boy but I'm back now. I'm asking for a chance."

Hermione tearfully shook her head. She brought her son's small head up to her lips and kissed it tenderly.

"I stand by what I have said Severus. You're not father material. He will be known as a Granger not a Snape. He will be mine and mine alone." Hermione told the man defiantly, her heart jumping in her chest as she saw how broken he looked. "You may live here, but you are no father to our child...and nothing to me. It was all a mistake anyway. A terrible mistake."

"You don't mean that." He said softly, reaching out and stroking a black curl on his little boy's forehead. The love that swelled within him was like nothing he felt before.

"He will never know your hurt. Now if you would leave please. He needs to be fed and I need some rest."

Severus nodded sadly, getting up and walking closer to Hermione and his boy. He knew there was no point in arguing with her and he could see how tired she was. He needed to leave her be, no matter how much it pained him.

"Goodnight little Granger." He whispered leaning down and kissing his sons tiny forehead. "I love you Hermione. I could never find those words before but I do. Know that those words are true." He told her, bending over as if to kiss her on top of the head but thinking better of it and standing up, turning around and walking away.

As if on cue the baby began to cry. Severus turned back, his heart aching, but he knew he needed to keep walking, back to the dungeons, to the dark where he belonged.

Hermione watched him go, her heart beating hard in her chest. She had lied to Severus Snape, told him that he was nothing to her, told him that their son was hers and hers alone, but seeing him she knew that she wanted nothing more than to be a family with that greasy, insufferable dungeon bat, a man who she had truly grown to love. At that moment she decided that she was going to make him prove that he truly wanted it too.