Chapter Text
“To Harrie,“ Ron bellows, teetering on unsteady legs, glass in hand, „To Harrie Potter, the Girl Who Kicked Arse, who’s not afraid of anything, not even of saying ‘sod off’ to Kingsley fucking Shacklebolt himself! Ha!”
Harrie raises her glass, grinning from ear to ear, the late hour and the abundance of drink doing wonders to lower her inhibitions.
Hermione’s, not so much. She looks around, horrified. “Ronald,” she hisses, pulling at his sleeve to make him sit back down. “There are people here.”
“Oi, cheer up, love,” he embraces his wife in a bear hug, pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek. “This is a celebration. It’s not every day that the Girl Who Lived decides to quit the force, eh?”
It is Harrie’s turn to scan their surroundings for possible onlookers. Luckily, nobody seems to be paying attention to their group of three in this crowded, noisy pub. It’s not that she expects her newest career development (or career regression, rather) to remain secret forever, she just doesn’t want the news to spread by Ron screaming it into existence like this.
It is Friday night, so she fully expects it to make headlines in Monday’s Prophet. And after that, all hell will break loose.
Hermione finally frees herself from Ron’s embrace and grabs their glasses to go for a refill. When she comes back it is with two firewhisky sours… and one pumpkin juice.
“Mione,” Harrie groans. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but… Ron is right! Loosen up a little. Have one drink with us.”
Hermione purses her lips in a secretive little smile. “I’m just fine with my juice, thank you.”
“Ron, help me out here.”
Ron sways on his chair a little bit, taking a sip of his refreshed drink, his expression sparkling with excitement. His eyes jump between Harrie and Hermione, hesitant and eager.
Hermione nudges him with an elbow to the ribs. “Be quiet.”
“I wasn’t saying anything!”
“You were thinking it,” she whispers and Harrie barely catches it. “We are celebrating Harrie’s fresh start tonight; we can discuss our news some other time.”
Harrie perks up. “What news?” she inquires immediately. She was never very good at reading the room.
“See, now we have to tell her.”
Hermione shoots her husband a murderous glare. She pointedly grabs his drink from his hands and moves it out of his reach. She is very careful not to move it in front of herself, though, just away from him. She’s not interested in his drink, in fact she hasn’t had a sip the entire night, nursing her tall glass of pumpkin juice instead…
Harrie’s heart beats a little faster. “What news?” she repeats, her voice strained.
Hermione gives her a shy smile, Ron a toothy grin. They don’t say anything, they don’t have to. Hermione presses one hand to her stomach, confirming Harrie’s suspicion.
Something sharp stabs Harrie in the stomach. It’s joy, she tells herself stubbornly. She is overcome with the joy she feels for her friends, that's all.
“Oh, Mione, Ron,” she says, eyes welling with tears. “Oh, that’s fantastic. I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m gonna be a dad, Harrie.” Ron throws a heavy arm around her shoulders, a reverent kind of delight in his voice. “Can you believe it? A family of my own…”
Another stab, sharper than the previous one, making her jaw and heart clench. A crawling, unpleasant feeling spreads across her skin, making her want to claw at herself. Making her want to run off and leave her friends behind, leave them to their reverent little smiles and pumpkin juices.
Harrie doesn’t have to analyze the feeling very hard. She can recognize envy when she feels it.
The smile that she plants on her face is fake, and she hates herself for it. The tears are real, and they’re not of joy, and she resents that even more.
“So, did you do it?”
Harrie yelps, her wand flying out of the holster and into her hand before she can stop herself. Merlin, these cursed Auror reflexes will be hard to shake off.
“You did, didn’t you? You went celebrating with your foul little friends. I haven’t got a nose anymore, and I can still smell the alcohol on you.”
She resists the urge to curse him out, or curse him for real. After all, he is a painting, and she's not really sure how effective either of these options would be in making him leave her alone.
“Go to sleep, Phineas.”
He regards her with a haughty scoff. “I’m a portrait, little girl. Sleep is all I do. Now, make my night slightly more interesting and describe the expression on Shacklebolt’s face when you informed him that his superstar Auror is retiring at the prime age of three and twenty.”
“Did you really just call me a little girl and a retiree in one breath? Are you even listening to yourself?”
“If you ever become as ancient as I am, plenty of people will be little girls and little boys in your eyes.”
“If I ever become as ancient as you are and still remain talking, I will beg to have my painting burned. Rather than turn into a miserable old fart like you.”
He calls her an insolent half-breed after that, but she is already leaving him behind, making a beeline for the bathroom before he ends up with firewhisky-sour-vomit all over his fancy frame.
That would be one way to shut him up, she thinks bitterly with her head down the toilet, retching her soul out. Only the clean-up would still be up to her, so probably not really worth the trouble.
On the other hand, she would deserve it – waking up in the morning and having to clean her puke from the stately drawing room of Grimmauld Place 12, accompanied by reprimands from Hogwarts’ Worst Headmaster… A fitting punishment for being such a shoddy friend.
A pang of guilt courses through Harrie’s heart.
She flushes the evidence of the night’s entertainment down the toilet and goes to brush her teeth. Almost like morning sickness. Only she won’t get a baby by the end of it, only a headache the next day.
The following morning, Harrie wakes up feeling pretty much exactly the way she predicted. She pushes her watery scrambled eggs around the plate, vaguely nauseated, nursing a headache.
At least Phineas is leaving her alone, his frame empty, the ornate armchair in his painting unoccupied.
She gives up on breakfast soon after, making do with a cup of lukewarm tea. Then she summons her newest project, an older Comet Two Ninety she purchased a couple of days ago. She picks up her wand and starts stripping the charmed lacquer with meticulous pokes of her magic.
“I am giving you two weeks before you drive yourself insane.”
She looks up from her work with a frown. He is back, observing her with a snooty expression, lounging in his armchair.
“Good morning, Phineas.”
“Hmph.”
Her hand slips and she tuts at her own clumsiness, examining the damage. She chipped the wood a little bit, but nothing she can’t fix. These older broomsticks were made sturdy and unless one pretty much breaks them in half, they will fly just fine.
Phineas watches her tinkering with furrowed brows. “For an alleged celebrity, you are terribly uninteresting.”
The lacquer is already slightly chipped in places where the broomstick’s previous owner used to sit on it, the repeated contact damaging the surface slightly. She has to be careful and not dig too deep, otherwise she chips the shaft again. “Sorry to be a disappointment,” she says.
“Hmph.
Harrie could move her work into one of the rooms that didn’t have paintings in them, she supposes, but the giant table of the dining room is just so convenient.
She also could try to remove Phineas’s painting from the wall altogether, but she isn’t about to risk getting hit by any number of nasty hexes some Black or other might have put onto it. She is not going to die by a forgotten curse in her own home, not right after she finally decided that she did, in fact, value her life and left the Auror Office.
“You will become lonely in no time.”
“Joke’s on you, that’s where you’re wrong.” Merlin, it was just her luck she would be stuck with world’s least agreeable portrait. “I already am lonely.”
“Oh, I figured as much. Lonely enough to entertain a conversation with yours truly,” he taunts, sounding entirely too satisfied.
It is her turn to hmph at him in annoyance.
“You need a husband,” Phineas says.
“You need a hobby,” she retorts. She points to the disassembled broomstick in front of her. “See this? A hobby. You should try some, instead of bothering me all the time.”
He chooses to nonchalantly ignore her disrespect. “You had the right idea by quitting your silly little job. Now, the next step for any self-respecting young witch would be to attract a suitor and surrender herself to the bliss of marital life.”
On the other hand, maybe she could risk a small hex or two, if it meant that she would be getting rid of him for good. Surely a quick little Incendio wouldn’t hurt?
“I don’t want a husband.”
“No, I know,” he admits musingly. “You want a child. But to acquire one, a husband is typically needed.”
Harrie chokes on her tea, sputtering all over the table, earning the portrait’s disgusted sneer. “I am not discussing this with you.”
“You do know how children are conceived, yes?”
“Enough.” Harrie’s hand falters and she chinks a piece of wood right off the shaft. She curses. “Ah, now look what you did!”
Phineas is staring at her blankly. He lifts a speculative eyebrow. “I didn’t take you for such a prude. To my knowledge, you half-breeds are supposed to be a lot more salacious than this, Muggle blood and all.”
“I am aware of how children are made, thank you very much, Professor,” she huffs indignantly, assessing the damage to her Comet. “And since I am this salacious half-breed, I also happen to know you don’t exactly need to be married to get on with the process.”
He leans back in his armchair, looking mighty pleased. “At last you are becoming somewhat interesting,” he compliments her.
Harrie rewards him with a mirthless chuckle.
She works in silence for a bit after that, removing the rest of the lacquer and unleashing a series of diagnostic spells on the broomstick’s core. Phineas watches with one eye, ostentatiously bored, stroking his pointy beard and removing imperceptible specks of dust from his midnight black robes.
She starts scribbling down possibilities for her next steps when he decides to be a disturbance again.
“Well? What is the verdict?”
“Hm, the wood is quite old, I must say, but the core is solid, so I think the modifications I have in mind could-…”
“No, you twit,” he drawls, observing his manicure. “I do not care about your silly broomstick. What will you do about the child?”
Harrie gapes at him, quill in hand. “What child?”
He looks down at her with a comically exasperated expression on his pointy face. “My, but you have the memory of a Puffskein. However did you successfully pass your NEWTs? The school has truly gone downhill since my days. And to think that I considered my students hopeless…”
“Phineas,” she interrupts, ignoring his string of insults. “What the hell are you on about?”
“What is the plan regarding your intended motherhood, girl? How will you go about obtaining this child that you want so much?”
She waves her quill around in an incredulous gesture, spraying ink all over the table. “There’s no plan! What do you mean? I can’t just plan to ‘obtain’ a baby like this, it just… happens.”
“Just happens.” The scepticism in his eyes is almost palpable. “I though you said you were aware of how children are made.”
Harrie can feel embarrassment paint her cheeks a shade of crimson. “Oh, do be quiet, you” she chastises. “You know what I mean. I can’t just jot down a plan to get a baby like a potion recipe, that’s not how it works. I'd need… somebody.”
“Precisely,” he nods sagely. “And since you are apparently willing to forgo marriage and skip ahead directly to procreation, this ‘somebody’ might be a lot easier to come by.”
“You mean, approach a random man in the Leaky Cauldron and ask him to father a child with the Girl Who Lived? Yeah, absolutely.”
“While that would undoubtedly earn you a volunteer in no time, I would recommend a more cautious method.”
“Uh-huh.” He is just teasing her, she is sure of it. Best to stop paying attention to him, he will get bored of it in no time. Hopefully when he decides to annoy her next time, he will choose a topic that is less sensitive to her. Just the thought of it, of her bringing new life into this world, a little person that is just her own, a family…
She looks away before her eyes betray her inner turmoil.
Phineas strokes his beard some more, observing he with narrowed eyes and a shrewd little smile Harrie doesn’t enjoy at all. She bends back down to her work, removing splatters of ink from her Comet with a quick Evanesco.
Unfortunately, he decides to open his two-dimensional mouth once again. “You need a candidate. Multiple candidates, preferably,” he says, nodding to himself. “Someone of reasonable magical ability, solid intellect, acceptable social standing, and – most importantly – someone whom you can trust.”
“Phineas, you are being-…”
“Then,” he continues, lifting a finger, “once you have your man, you and him enter into a magical contract. He will agree to… erm, provide the resources necessary for the creation of a child, and commit to relinquish all rights to any offspring you may create together. You, on the other hand, will agree to absolve him of all parental responsibilities and to raise the child on your own. Simple, clean. Efficient.”
Has he... already given this some thought?
Incensed, Harrie whips out her wand. “Silencio,” she hollers towards the snickering painting. “I have had just about enough-…”
“You are aware this spell only works on beings that are actually living, yes?”
She mutters something uncivilized under her breath, letting her wand hand drop, instead hoping to silence him with the intensity of her unhappy scowl.
Perhaps he is doing this on purpose; after all this time of her living at Grimmauld, after all the times he called her a willful half-breed, a Muggle worshipper, an imbecilic tactless Gryffindor whose only talent was risking her life… he finally found a way to get under her skin.
Her yearning for family is discovered, and the oil-painted arse isn’t very likely to let that go anytime soon.
“I have no clue what has got into you. My idea is faultless,” he sniffles.
“I swear on Godric’s good name that if you don’t stop mocking me, I will find a way to have you removed from this blasted house, and I will have you hung in the Shrieking Shack.”
He regards her with a smug huff. “You are certainly welcome to try.”
“Why are you doing this?! If you keep taunting me, I might be inclined to really go through with your stupid plan, you know, just to spite you.”
He stares, solemn and unblinking. “Please, do. I personally think that having a child is the best idea I have heard from you.” He shrugs. “Not that it says much.”
She returns the stare. “I don’t understand.”
“How surprising.”
Remarkable, really, that someone dead for so long still manages to be this irritating.
She folds her arms over her chest in a rather pathetic attempt to look authoritative. “Explain,” she says.
He spreads his arms wide in a dramatic gesture. “Look at this place. Do you think Grimmauld Place was built by my ancestors to be inhabited by an unwed, unsociable, unkempt woman, living alone?”
She tugs at a lock of her defiant black hair, feeling irrationally embarrassed. “I brushed my hair yesterday,” she grouses.
“This is a dynastic home, you chit. Its halls are meant to be filled with young heirs. Its rooms have never been this empty. It is not serving its purpose.”
“The house… wants me to have a baby?”
“The house is me.” His eyes stern and sure and definitive. “And I am the house. My, my, however did you think my portrait’s magic was being maintained? Some Muggle came in and attached me to a steam engine?”
Steam engine! The corner of her mouth twitches.
“You may not be a Black, but you are the house’s Mistress. It falls to you to fill it with life. So, to answer your silly question – yes, the house wants you to have a baby.”
“Even if the baby is a half-breed?” she asks.
He closes his eyes and rubs his temple. Can portraits get headaches? “Did you plan to cavort between the sheets with Muggles?”
She has considered it, in fact. Dating as the Girl Who Lived was no easy task, and a task she has given up on a long time ago. Any time she thought she found a promising young man – someone honourable, someone strong, someone who made her smile – all they did was stare at her scar, all they did was ask about the war. They didn’t want Harrie, Just Harrie, the adventurous loner who liked to fight and fly and fantasize. They wanted a hero, or – even worse – a superstar. The killer of the Dark Lord. The saviour of the Wizarding World. The girl who died and lived to tell the tale, twice.
Muggle men wouldn’t care about any of that.
They, however, also wouldn’t care about magic. And Harrie loves magic too much not to want to share it with her partner.
“No,” she says with conviction, “no Muggles.”
“Then we are in agreement.”
Wait, what? They aren't. Are they? Does Harrie… does she actually agree with him?
I do, her treacherous mind whispers. I want this.
She wants this so much she finds herself ignoring how completely ridiculous Phineas’s plan is. The fantasy is irresistible. A black-haired child crawling and running and falling in these corridors that she restored, sneaking into the kitchen at night, stealing her half-assembled broomsticks to try and fly out of the window, bruising a knee, crying, laughing.
A family. Her own. Her little capsule of happiness. A person to love.
She wants it fiercely.
She would never plan this on her own. She is plenty bold, that is for certain, and she has dreamt of it an unhealthy amount, but to make such a plan and then execute it... Harrie Potter doesn’t have a family, and all her dreams of it are just that – dreams. She had friends, but she faced life alone. She was alone when Voldemort lifted his wand against her in her crib, and she was alone again in the Forbidden Forest. That’s just the way of things.
Only Phineas doesn’t seem to think so.
“Yes,” she finds herself whispering, her throat tight. “We are.”
Phineas Nigellus Black smiles. It appears genuine.
“Excellent. Now, about your candidates…”
The old Comet Two Ninety lies forgotten on the floor when the golden rays of sunset hit the dining room through the window. Harrie is still there, hunched inelegantly over a blotchy, scratched-through piece of parchment. Racking her brain, chewing on her lip.
“Malfoy,” he says again.
“I said no.”
“Whyever not?” Phineas exclaims. “Exceptional breeding.”
Her mouth opens and closes, mind scrambling for new ways to explain to the archaic old fart that she could give a rat’s arse about breeding, but gives up halfway. She just grunts at him.
He has the nerve to look disgusted. “You may be right. He wouldn’t want you anyway.”
“Which one?”
“Neither.”
She doesn’t argue. She knows he is right.
“Read them to me,” he demands.
Harrie is happy with her list. It’s a solid list, she thinks, as far as lists of candidates for fatherhood go. Good, quality candidates. Breeding studs, Phineas exclaimed delightedly, which made Harrie blush a furious shade of pink.
She looks at the parchment, reads the first name. “Neville Longbottom.”
“I thought we agreed we were looking for an intelligent specimen.”
“Neville is smart!” she protests. “He does some great work in his field… I hear.”
“His field being Herbology.”
“How do you even know that?!”
He sends her a prideful smile. “This is not the only frame I inhabit, you know.”
Oh, she knows. And she certainly doesn’t appreciate the reminder.
She scowls at him and returns to her list. “Ernie Macmillan.”
“Hm. A Hufflepuff?”
“Yes. Pureblooded, before you ask. Works at Gringotts as some sort of analyst. One of the few from the old Dumbledore’s Army I still meet with occasionally, good bloke.”
“Hm,” he says again, sceptical. “Next?”
A sigh. “Charlie Weasley. I actually think he’s gay but he might agree to a… uh, one-time arrangement."
Phineas’s eyes roll at the sound of the Weasley name. “Next, please.”
“Um. Colin Creevey would be another solid choice. One year younger than me, but who cares, honestly.”
“Muggleborn, yes?”
“Yeah...”
He sighs in exasperation. “I fear you are not approaching this matter with the gravity it deserves.“
„I am, too! Excuse me if my social circle isn’t overflowing with single men ready to pounce on me!”
He giggles. Insufferable.
“There’s more. I’ve got young Raulus Scrimgeour, son of the former Minister, he’s from the Auror Office. I’ve got Ambrose Sterling, he owns Quality Quidditch Supplies, now, he’s ancient, definitely over fifty, but a great sense of humour-…”
“Have you got no Slytherins on there?!”
“Um.” She searches her list, squinting. “I’ve got… Oh! I’ve got Marcus Flint. He plays for the Tornados nowadays. He did ask me out once, after the war.”
“No,” he says. “Certainly not a Flint. My wife’s family; repugnant people, the lot of them. Unquestionably very fertile, but the quality of the offspring is dubious at best.”
“Quite the family man you are, Phineas.”
He ignores her. “You agreed with the suggested parameters. Intelligent, magically gifted, trustworthy. Do you know no such man?”
She throws out her arms in frustration. “Most of these people are strong, intelligent wizards!”
He leans forward in his ornate armchair, as though he wants to hiss his next word directly into her face. “Trustworthy.”
Well, that is a right pickle, isn’t it? Because how many people does she truly trust? She trusts Ron and Hermione, certainly. She trusts Luna, who helped her with her panic attacks after the war. She trusts Ginny, who was the first one supportive of her when she announced her intention to quit the force. Not that any of them would be much help with her current predicament…
She trusts most of the members of the Order, sure, and they are definitely powerful and intelligent enough, but they are all either married, or didn’t survive the war.
They didn’t survive…
She looks up sharply. Phineas is still leaning forward, watching her intently, giving her a knowing, Machiavellian smirk. Trustworthy, he said.
“No,” she growls at him, her heart already picking up speed.
“Snape.”
“No. Shut up.”
“He is perfect.”
He is. The answer is still a no. This is not a discussion she is willing to have.
“No,” she says one more time, resolute. Her hands ball into fists. “Don’t say his name again, you old wanker. This conversation is finished.”
She stands up before he can protest, cleans up the cluttered dining room with an angry swish of her wand. Before she storms out of the room, out of the corner of her eye she can see Phineas’s form disappear into the edge of the frame, clearly offended.
She doesn’t care. If he won’t respect her, fine; but he will at least learn to put respect on his name.
Unsurprisingly, Harrie dreams of him that night.
‘Stay with me, Snape.’
Blood, so very red, redder than Gryffindor, redder than Voldemort’s eyes, stained her hands. In her dreams she can't smell or feel it, but she doesn’t need to. She remembers the sensations as if it all happened yesterday; the warm stickiness of it between her shaking fingers as she clawed the vial of antivenin open, the nauseatingly metallic pang of it in her nose as her nostrils flared in determination above his dying body.
Her mouth started droning the words Vulnera Sanentur all on its own, ineptly, inexperiencedly. Her wand dancing in a barely familiar pattern. It trembled, and her voice stuttered, and she had never cast it before, and he was a traitor, a fucking vile murderous bastard, but she wouldn’t let him die like this on the dirty floor of the Shrieking Shack, no, plenty have died, too many, no more…
Her magic soared, despite everything, and he sucked in a horrible gurgling breath through his crooked teeth. She imagined punching him.
The dream changes.
She was in her Auror uniform, despite having been just a trainee then, arms folded across her chest, wand in hand, waiting. Her foot tapping against the wet rock of the cliff in a nervous staccato. Her patronus frolicking around her.
When he appeared, surrounded by two Dementors, she gulped. Her doe chased the creatures away and she jumped forward when he faltered, caught his tall form by the shoulders – so skinny, too fucking skinny – and stabilized him.
‘I am so sorry,’ she whispered in his ear, greasy hair touching her cheek. Would he ever forgive her? ‘It took me one year. But you’re free now, forever. I promise.’
He said nothing, his eyes black and deep and empty. She imagined kissing him.
The dream changes.
It was the Ministry gala, and she was wearing things she didn’t enjoy, cleavage too low and heels too high. The Minister had suggested she look pretty for the journalists. She had cussed him out, but obeyed.
She forced herself to smile, shook another hand. Took another picture. Learned another name. She didn’t care about any of these people, she only cared about one man, and he wouldn’t come.
‘Severus Snape,’ a voice announced. And a man appeared. He came.
She forced her way forward, pushing important dignitaries away, uncaring. Watched him take the First Class Order of Merlin from the Minister’s hand, then shake it. She climbed up the podium, indifferent to people’s stares. ‘Congratulations, Professor.’ She offered her hand for a handshake as well, not expecting he take it. He took it. His fingers were firm and long and elegant. She imagined them in her cunt.
Harrie wakes up.
She blinks a couple of times, her mind pushing through the remnants of drowsiness, separating dream from reality. She takes a deep breath, listening to the wild gallop of her heart in her chest.
This is far from the first time she has dreamt of him, but it hasn’t happened in a long time, so it surprises her. Nowadays she doesn't see him much – the last time all she glimpsed was a quick flash of his profile as he disappeared into the apothecary in Diagon Alley this summer. After that experience, she dreamt of him several times, her mind idly jumping between real and fictional scenarios. It was the fictional scenarios that were the real problem, and the reason why she started avoiding him in the first place. If she didn’t see him, she didn’t think of him, and her dreams were safe.
Quite upsetting, really, that a mere mention of his name from her oil-painted oaf could restart this process anew.
She steadies her breathing, collecting courage. And then she shifts her hips experimentally.
As she feared, it is immediately obvious to her how wet she is.
Her eyes close in shame, despite the fact that there is nobody to witness her humiliation. They are still closed when she drags her right hand down the side of her body, across her abdomen and between her legs. She keeps them closed even as she inserts a finger into her pussy, her opening relaxed and sopping, not resisting as she feeds her digit into it, letting her add another soon after. Clenches them further shut as she fucks herself with two, then three fingers, lazily at first, with more urgency as time progresses, coal black eyes on a sallow face floating underneath her firmly sealed eyelids the entire time.
She doesn’t open them when she comes. She does open her mouth, however, gasping a name into the emptiness of her bedroom.
When she walks down to the dining room minutes later, she finds Phineas waiting for her.
He regards her calmly, cocking a bushy eyebrow.
“Alright,” she hears herself say.
“Snape?”
“Snape.”
Phineas smiles.