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Chapter 9

"Minerva!", shouted Severus, entering the office before dusting himself and his godson off.

"Severus? What's the matter with you, it's 20 past 6 in the morning, and you just storm into my office through the floo giving an old woman like me a heart attack!"

Severus was about to throw a snarky retort at her when the floo activated again and Minerva kind of shrieked in surprise and put her hand on her heart.

"Merlin, Miss Granger. Is there more of you to come or can I relax now?"

The young brown-haired woman just looked at her former head of house with a quizzical expression but thought nothing of the unusual jumpy and irritated behaviour of her professor.

"Now, what is it that has the two of you running around the school at this hour with the children in tow?" The old witch sat down at her desk heaving a deep sigh.

"Well, we noticed some development with our little monsters. It is as if they aged several weeks overnight. This morning they both were kind of able to say the other's name and their clothes were several sizes too small, although they were fitting perfectly just yesterday evening. We know that growing is normal but not this much at once, Minerva," said Severus, eyeing his godson who struggled to get out of his grasp.

"Curious indeed. Do you think that they may be going through all the stages of growing up but everything's a little sped up?" replied the headmistress. Her former students nodded uncertainly.

"That's what we were thinking. We came to tell you so that you may notify the Parkinsons and Weasleys."

Hermione had to fight Harry's chubby hands as he was trying to pull out quite a few hairs of hers with them.

Severus sighed and sat Draco down, finally conceding to all of his godson's struggling.

The baby boy first began to crawl until he stood straight using a chair's leg as leverage.

Seeing this Harry tried to wriggle his own way out of Hermione's grasp.

"Well, I may just as well do that later. For now, I just need to think straight," sighed Minerva, getting up and walked to a small cabinet behind her. She opened it, took a tumbler and poured herself a finger firewhiskey.

She eyed her glass sceptical before muttering: "It's after five in the afternoon somewhere in this world, isn't it?"

She gulped down her drink as Severus and Hermione eyed her suspiciously and quite a bit concerned.

"Minerva, what exactly is the matter? You seem exhausted, and you never drink unless there is something severely wrong and much less this early in the morning. Spit it out, what's it?", asked Severus as sensitive as ever.

The older witch, who was still standing with her empty tumbler in hand, sighed and plopped down in her armchair at her desk again.

"Last night, Poppy and I were doing some research in the library. You see, earlier we had to bring Madam Pince to the hospital wing because she fell off a ladder in the library. She was partly unconscious and partly delusional because of a concussion she got from that fall. In her delusional state, she said some things that left us intrigued." She looked up from her desk and was met with two expectant faces.

"What is it that she said, Professor?", asked Hermione slowly.

After a while, her professor answered.

"She repeatedly said something like: "Leave Severus alone, he didn't do anything wrong." At least that's the part of her mutterings that what we actually understood. Now, that left us clueless as to what or whom she was referring to. There are not many wizards with the name 'Severus' we know of. I'm currently waiting for Poppy to inform me that she is awake and not delusional so that I can ask her. The library didn't provide us with any information we could use in our research."

Severus just sat there completely stunned while Hermione was searching for the right words. "Is there anything we can do to help you or Poppy?"

"I do think some pain relievers would be greatly appreciated by Poppy and Madam Pince,", said the old headmistress.

Suddenly, there was a rather loud bang to be heard from somewhere behind them. Quickly they all turned to see what caused that ruckus.

The room was completely silent and there was a big pile of books in front of one of the many bookshelves in the office.

After a while, they heard a giggling sound echoing through the room. They saw that a book was floating some inches above the pile. Another giggle followed. The book fell again but shortly after that, the books made space for something, or better someone, else starting to float.

"I fwy! Look Hawwy, I fwy!", squealed the blonde baby boy currently floating two feet above the ground steadily going higher.

Another giggle escaped the other child looking up at the blonde from under some books in that pile.

The emerald-eyed boy began to laugh hysterically as his new friend flew higher and higher.

The adults were staring at each other in shock. It took quite some time for them to actually react to this and by that time Severus' godson was already nearly 6 feet off the ground always going higher.

Severus and Hermione quickly stood up.

Hermione went and picked up Harry from under his safe sanctuary under the book pile whilst Severus tried to catch Draco.

However, the small boy was enjoying this far too much to just let his godfather catch him, and so he just floated higher just out of the black-haired man's reach. 

"Oh, come on Draco! Come down. This is absolutely not funny!"

Draco, however, found this really hilarious and floated just in the older's reach and out of it just for the fun of it.

Severus stood there, observing the baby's every move and after some time he caught his chubby arm and pulled the boy down into his arms.

Hermione had the books back in place and a still giggling Harry on her arm, while Minerva stood in front of her liquor cabinet and downed yet another firewhiskey.

Severus and Hermione had their little monsters and made their way through the floo into their now shared chambers.

Once there, they put the baby-culprits into their cribs.

Severus sank into a blue armchair in front of Hermione's fireplace and buried his face in his hands.

Hermione walked over to him and sat down on the couch next to the armchair.

"Severus? I'm sure there's a logical reason for all of this."

He sighed and regained a straighter posture, crossing his legs at his ankles and his arms across his chest. "The only logical reasons I see at the moment are either that this is all about another man called Severus, Madam Pince has gone completely bonkers or my mother is still alive after all these years. I personally hope that it's either one or two as I don't know what I would be able to do if it were the third possibility." His tone was really dark and Hermione knew just how serious this all was to him.

"I thought along the same lines actually. Could you stay here with them while I go back to Minerva?", asked the brown-eyed witch.

Severus looked at her questioningly.

"I need to talk to her. There seems to be more bothering her than what she told us. She was always there for us, listened to us and helped us with all of our problems. Now it's time for us to help her."

She looked at her professor with a sad but determined expression.

"I know what you mean. Go ahead, I'll watch the monsters."

He smiled at her.

A small and foreign gesture Hermione wasn't really expecting. But that's what made it all the more special to her.

She smiled back and turned to her fireplace again.