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Chapter 5

She passes her friend's dead bodies. First Tonks and Remus laying there on the cold stone floor of the great hall, united even in death and never to be left without the other just as they vowed at their wedding. She immediately has to think of poor little Teddy. The little one had never had the chance to get to know his parents, just like Harry. The next people there are Padma Patil and Lavender Brown. They were in her year, fellow Gryffindors, but Hermione never really had to interact with them and for that, she was quite glad. They were way too girly for a bookworm just like her. Suddenly green lightning bolts flash through the hall. A child begins to wail somewhere as more and more people fall, unmoving. First Ron, then Neville and even Harry. The baby's cries are getting louder and louder.

Breathing heavily Hermione woke from that nightmare. It was the same nightmare she had had since the end of the war, but it never got that far.

The baby's cries were still there. Where were those cries coming from?

She flicked her wand turning the lights on and looked around. First, she looked into a pair of tired and a bit angry looking charcoal black eyes. She looked next to her professor turned baby and saw that Harry was the one who was crying.

He had woken up due to her thrashing and light screaming in the wake of her nightmare.

She stood up and quickly took him into her arms to soothe him down. She looked at her alarm clock on her night stand.

5.57 am.

Sighing she plopped down on her bed again still trying to get the boy to stop crying. After ten minutes she gave up.

"Winky?" asked the brown-haired witch and seconds later a small house elf appeared in her room. She reminded Hermione of Dobby and so the young woman had to fight some tears that were threatening to fall as she remembered her little friend.

"Yes, Miss Hermione?"

"Winky, bring me two porridges, a cup of black coffee and two toasts with orange marmalade, please."

"Sure, Miss Hermione." And with a plop, the small elf was gone again.

Harry slowly began to calm down a bit while her professor was staring at her with a scowl on his face that looked as though he was pouting. He tried to look intimidating, but the problem was that, whatever babies and even baby Snapes do, it doesn't look intimidating but rather cute.

"What's up, Sir? What do you want to eat, you have only two teeth, and you know that" she said laughing.

A small plop was to be heard and Winky appeared in the room.

She had the food and coffee with her and put them down on a nearby table.

"Can Winky do anything else for her mistress?"

"No Winky, thank you very much." The elf went with another small popping sound and Hermione started feeding Harry his Porridge.

Afterwards, he was silent and happily sleeping again. She turned to her professor.

"And now on to you."

He hated that his student was actually feeding him porridge, but even he realized that his body wasn't even remotely close to being able to feed himself. He can't even walk without falling every three steps.

Why not? I'm in an 18-month olds body, so why not behave like one? Before I completely lose my face falling all the time she may as well carry me everywhere and feed me.

He waited for her to pick him up and feed him that surprisingly rather delicious porridge.

Finished with that, she quickly set him down, drinking her coffee and eating her toast before saying: "Harry, Severus, time to have a bath."

Wait. No! You don't actually want to bathe me? That would mean that she'd see me naked, gods no! She must be kidding me. She is kidding, isn't she?

He couldn't rant further in his mind because she already had picked Harry and him up and carried them both to the bathroom.

She set them down next to the tub, beginning to fill it.

Then she started taking off Harry's baby clothes and put him into the tub and turned to do the same to her professor, but he wasn't there any more.

She looked around and saw him trying to run away and out of the bathroom.

"Severus! You need to have a bath and I won't have anyone telling me that I don't take care of that too," she said once she had him in her arms again as he wasn't fast on his short wobbly legs.

He kicked around, but that left her fairly unimpressed. She took off his clothes and put him down next to Harry who was splashing the water around successfully irritating Severus even more.

The small black-eyed boy tried to stare them both down but didn't really succeed in that.

She washed them both and got them dressed in new clothes she had just transfigured.

She then took a happily babbling Harry and a royally pissed off Severus to her bedroom, grabbed her school bag and went down to the common room.

Neville and Astoria were already waiting there with their little ones to care for.

Together they all made their way to the transfiguration classroom.

Severus stared at her with hatred in his look the whole way as she carried him.

"What? I won't have you running around in all black. There'll be no black clothes for you as long as you stay with me and honestly, that dark blue suits you. Anyway, I could have chosen colours much worse: red for example, or a bright yellow. Would you prefer that?" His stare deepened and she smirked victoriously at him.

She wouldn't dare! But she is right, I do prefer blue to red or bright yellow. Wait, why did I just agree on that? I think that she can get me a place at St Mungo's Janus Thickey ward once this is all over. I'll only beg for a room as far from Lockhart's as possible.