Title: Marriage a la Mode, 4/???? Pairing: Snape/Lupin, implied Harry/Draco Canonicity: this is compatible only through GoF, since Sirius Black is alive. Summary: the Dark Lord has decided that Severus should marry and has chosen the bride. Little does he know that she is not what she appears…. Warning: mpreg, gender switch
Tap.
Tap.
Tap tap tap.
Tap tappity tap tappity -
Severus made a face at the insistent noise. Something large and vaguely bird-shaped had perched itself on the window sill if the silhouette against the curtains was any guide, and a persistent bird it was, to bang on the glass with no answer so early in the morning.
"This had best be important," he muttered, wincing at the touch of the cold parquet floor against his naked feet. They'd wakened and made love a second time halfway through the night, and he had quickly learned that however virginal Soleil had been in school, she was no blushing innocent now.
Fawkes, trilling slightly, cocked his head at him as he opened the window. Severus ran a hand through his hair as the phoenix proffered a note addressed in Albus Dumbledore's unmistakable script. He scowled. Where had Albus and his incendiary familiar been last night?
There was a faint, sleepy sound from the bed. Severus snatched at the message and made a shooing motion at the phoenix. Soleil was young and naïve, but she was far from stupid, and she had spent a year at Hogwarts watching Albus potter about feeding Fawkes cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans. If she recognized the bird -
Fawkes trilled brightly and swooped away in a flash of glowing red. Severus took a moment to rub the note between his fingers; Albus' latest trick was comestible paper (usually lemon flavored, with faint notes of chocolate and mocha in the ink) and he wanted to know if he would have to eat it, drink it, or burn after reading.
This one was smooth parchment, which meant it probably was a simple note of congratulations, not a coded Order message. Severus settled himself on the window seat and broke the glittering purple seal.
My dear Severus -
I have excellent news! Last night the Order attacked Riddle Manor as the guests were leaving your nuptials.
Severus' jaw dropped.
We made a clean sweep, with no notable casualties (alas, Minerva got to Peter Pettigrew before anyone could stop her) save one. Voldemort fought most effectively, but fortunately Harry had brought his Invisibility Cloak. I'm not sure Tom ever knew what hit him, but I can state unequivocally that having a Portland stone gargoyle dropped on one's head from broomback is not compatible with life.
He shot out his left arm, unable to believe what he read until he saw the smooth, unmarred skin. Could it possibly be true? Could Voldemort have died while Severus was asleep?
The public announcement will be made by Cornelius Fudge later this morning. Most of the Order will be there, but of course you will have more important things to do.
Severus glanced quickly over at the bed. A lick of brown hair, somewhat lighter than he remembered, was the only part of Soleil visible.
Soleil. His wife. His almost certainly pregnant wife.
Oh yes, he had important things to do.
I will tell you more when you return to the school. The House Elves will need another few hours to consolidate your respective households and prepare your new quarters, but we are all anxious for you and your new spouse to join us for a proper celebration.
Please give my best to your better half. Congratulations on your marriage, and know that your intelligence was critical to a new and better day for all of British Wizardry.
My very best wishes,
Albus Dumbledore.
He stared out the window at the gardens. Several topiaries had been torn out by the roots and lay diagonally across the planting beds. The fountain was in ruins, the maze burned, and what looked like at least two persons' worth of blood stained the ritual circle where Voldemort had addressed his followers. Clearly there had indeed been a huge battle, and just as clearly Severus himself had been too drugged to notice.
"Severus?" The voice was low and gravelly from sleep. "What's going on?"
He folded the parchment and shoved it under an ornamental paperweight styled to look like Isis and the infant Horus. "It was an owl. Congratulations from Headmaster Dumbledore on our marriage."
She made a throaty sound and started to sit up. "Congratulations? Would you read it to me?"
He swallowed, hard. Would she want to see the note? Could he use a redaction spell and not have it destroy the parchment?
"We can do that later. Right now we need to eat before we leave for Hogwarts." Severus did his best to smile. Voldemort had wanted him to whisk his bride away to Atmosphere Cottage for a quick honeymoon, but if the caretaker was to be believed, the phlogistonal discharges could kill a Ukrainian Ironbelly at half a mile.
The bed's occupant yawned loudly and stretched a pair of arms that were far more muscular than Severus remembered, then turned and smiled. "Breakfast sounds lovely. I'd kill for a cup of tea and a full English."
Severus could not have made a sound if his immortal soul had depended on it. The hair was wrong, the face, the body, everything but the bright smile and the love in the hazel-gold eyes -
He had gone to sleep with Soleil Gruyere. How had Remus Lupin taken her place?
"You - you - "
"I - oh. That's right." Lupin, who was rather less hairy this morning than Severus remembered, glanced down at himself. He shrugged. "I suppose I should have taken another dose of polyjuice before I woke up, but I wanted to be myself in case the fight was still going on. Did we win?"
"Polyjuice?" Severus pointed a trembling finger at the bed. "You mean - "
"Yes. It was me all along," said Lupin. How did the man stay so calm? Was he still drugged? "Soleil Gruyere eloped last night with a fine young man from Durmstrang and is honeymooning near the Black Sea. I took her place before the ceremony."
"Last night - "
The wolf was all but glowing with what looked like genuine happiness. "I volunteered, actually. Tonks is undercover in Birmingham and Hestia is married, so the Order didn't have any women available. Sirius had a fit when I said I'd be willing, but it's not his choice, is it?"
"You tried to eat me!"
"No, Sirius tried to get me to eat you. I had no idea until the next day." Lupin shook his head. "Severus, you know better. If I hadn't forgotten the Wolfsbane that night two years ago, I was planning to seduce you for an end of term surprise. You're infuriating and imperious, but you have the best arse I've ever seen."
Severus flushed at the compliment. No wonder "Soleil" had been so wanton last night. "Volunteered?"
"Oh yes," said Lupin. He sighed and ran his hand over his body as if it were somehow unfamiliar. "No one could have stopped me, even after Albus told me the details of what Voldemort had in mind for you and your wife. It looked like my chance at last.
"Besides, it was the perfect cover for us to get into position and take out the Death Eaters. Harry thought it was brilliant."
"You - you knew the Order was going to attack?" Severus watched as Lupin shook his hair back and stretched again. He had nicely shaped shoulders and a firmly muscled chest that otherwise would have made Severus's mouth water.
"Of course." Lupin scratched his stomach. "Albus wanted to tell you, but what if the drugs had dropped your defenses enough that Voldemort could read you? Harry wouldn't have had a chance.
"Oh, speaking of Harry, he'll probably thank you the moment he sees you. That comment you made about 'why don't we just drop a rock on the Dark Lord's head from broomback' sounded like a plan to him. Did it work?"
"It was a Portland stone gargoyle. According to Albus, yes," said Severus faintly. He dragged out the note and let it flutter to the carpet somewhere near the bed. "Lupin, I - "
"Come here so we can have a proper talk." Lupin patted the dent in the mattress where Severus had slept. "This must a terrible shock."
"Shock? Shock? Is that all you have to say?" Severus stood up quickly enough to dislodge a velvet pouf from the window seat. He swallowed what would have been a hysterical laugh. "First a madman wants me to marry a girl young enough to be my DAUGHTER so we can breed a son who will be - how did he put it? 'All that a wizard should be!'"
He slapped at his hair. "And then I wake up and find that my WIFE is a WOLF!"
"Severus - "
"And the greatest wizard in the world didn't even see fit to tell me that my WEDDING was a decoy so a sixteen year old brat could drop a gargoyle on someone's head and - "
"Severus - "
He waved his arms so violently that the curtains nearly came down on his head. "And now - now - now I'm married. To a MAN!" Severus all but threw himself backwards onto the bed. Lupin blinked a few times as the slats squealed in protest. "Bloody buggering hell."
The mattress had stopped bouncing when Lupin spoke. "Are you quite finished?"
Severus glared at him through his forelock. Why hadn't this happened two years ago? "Do I have a choice? Those spells are binding! You were female! I - "
He stopped. "Lupin. We still can get an annulment. False pretenses. You weren't really a woman." He sat up, grabbed Lupin's hands until he realized that the man still wore "Soleil's" wedding ring. "We can - "
"It won't do, Severus. First, the spells Voldemort used are binding on both marriages and same-sex bondings. Unless you're willing to risk your magic to try to get out of it, we're bonded." Lupin looked, if anything, more beautiful than he had as a woman, even with the bite scars on his shoulder. "Besides, there's another reason you can't leave me.
"I'm pregnant."
Severus shook his head. "The polyjuice wore off. You can't - "
"But I am. Surely you felt it? I know I did." Lupin's left hand rested almost shyly on his hairless belly. "Remember? You were still inside me when it happened. You looked so happy, I knew it would be all right."
Severus opened his mouth even though the ability to speak had deserted him. Lupin beamed.
"I know, it's really too early to say ' I'm pregnant,' or so Poppy would say. But the polyjuice formulation duplicated everything about Mademoiselle Soleil, including the effects of all those fertility potions that had been poured into her. Once we made love, I suppose it was inevitable."
"Pregnant." Severus shut his eyes against the memories flooding back: what he'd said, what he'd done, what he'd imagined. "You're certain?"
"I checked last night while you were asleep," said Lupin. He looked down at his abdomen with an almost quizzical arch of one eyebrow. "That's why I haven't fully reverted to male, and likely won't until, when? What's nine months from now?"
"December or January." Severus could not meet his eyes as Lupin flicked the sheet aside to reveal his lower half. No body hair except a curly triangle between his legs, soft moist folds replacing his balls, a waist that curved in, hips that flared out -
"You're a true hermaphrodite. My God."
Lupin looked almost serene. Had last night's spell barrage left him mad? "At least until the baby is born." He lightly ran his hand up and down his abdomen, then drew a ripe curve from groin to ribs. "I wonder if they make maternity robes for wizards or if I'll have to put an expansion charm on my clothes?"
Severus, hoping against hope, cast the diagnostic spell Narcissa Malfoy had taught him. He groaned as Lupin's stomach glowed a soft, delicate blue. "Lupin. If I'd know there was the slightest chance it was you and you'd - "
"Fall pregnant?"
"Stay female." He could not stop staring at the werewolf's abdomen. "I would have taken a contraceptive beforehand, or brought one with me. Surely you don't want to go through with this?"
Lupin laid a hand on his arm. "Why not? I'm bent, Severus, and always have been. Add in my furry little problem and this is the only chance I'll ever have to be a father." A dreamy smiled played about his lips. "Unless you know a lesbian werewolf who needs my stud services, at least until I'm too big to top."
Severus snorted despite himself. "Father? Wouldn't 'mother' would be more appropriate?"
"I think we can agree on 'parent.'" Lupin shifted close and nuzzled at Severus's arm. "I've fancied you - more than fancied you - for a while, Severus. That's why I volunteered for this mission when I found out that Hestia and Tonks weren't available." Severus shuddered as Lupin nipped gently at the point of his shoulder. "The least you can do is give the marriage a shot until the Quickening."
Quickening. Muggle law had changed regarding marriage and pregnancy, but those first delicate taps in the belly still mattered in the Wizarding World. Staying with Lupin after that would mean he accepted the child, and by extension the marriage.
Severus ran his hand over the graying hair, shorter than Soleil's but just as silky. Those flashes of lucidity, the hints that his bride knew him better than he thought….
"You knew, didn't you?" He gasped slightly as Lupin began to nibble at his throat. "That's why Tonks and Jones - "
"That's part of it. Neither of them wants children, at least right now." Lupin looked up at Severus through his lashes. For an instant he could almost see Soleil in his eyes. "Neither did Soleil - she said so while she was coaching me. She's only nineteen and wants to study in Prague for a few years before she starts a family."
"It's a boy, you know." Severus moved closer to his - husband? Bondmate? "Voldemort only wanted sons for his inner circle."
"A boy." The werewolf pulled Severus down into a kiss that verged on playful. "Isn't that what you just said you wanted, Severus? A little control over your life? Well, you have it now."
"How? I never wanted a family! I didn't have a choice in any of this!"
"Oh, but you do now. You have control of me." Lupin kissed him until he responded. He laced his fingers through Severus's and guided it to his abdomen. "You got me up the duff, so I won't transform for the next nine months. I'll be tame, completely tame, and isn't that what you've always wanted?"
Severus's cock twitched. Had he been so obvious when they'd taught together? Or had Lupin been studying him all along? "A tame wolf." He gazed into the other man's eyes. "I rather like that idea."
"I thought you would." Lupin's voice dropped to a husky whisper. "Just think, Severus. I'll need you to feed your magic to the baby before too long because I'm still largely male. Isn't that being in charge?"
"Indeed." The thought of Lupin and their child - child, dear God they would be parents! - so dependent on him was curiously stimulating.
"Then I'll start showing, just a little, and then more and more." Lupin deliberately pushed his stomach out to simulate his future appearance. Severus swallowed, spell-induced fantasies of "Soleil" nearing her time dancing before his eyes. "Before you know it I'll be too big to get in and out of chairs without you helping me. People will take one look at my stomach and know you're the reason."
Severus growled and rolled him onto his back. Lupin definitely had a point. "Oh, will they? All of them? Potter?" He leaned down for a kiss, one hand splaying possessively across that flat, firm belly. The thought of it round and heavy with child, their child, his child, was almost dizzying. "Albus? Sirius Black?"
Lupin moaned in a most gratifying way. "All of them - do that again, it's brilliant! You'll have me - us - and the ultimate revenge. Why not?"
Severus grinned. He could see it all too clearly: Black having an apoplectic fit at the sight of his dear old friend waddling about the school preceded by his growing belly, his attentive spouse keeping watch lest he do himself a mischief. It would be glorious.
"You have a point, Lupin. Remus." He slipped his arms under his spouse's elbows, murmured a spell, and pushed into that lovely soft wet place just below that lovely thick cock. Remus gasped. "I think we owe to ourselves and our son, don't you?"
"Oh yes. Oh YES!" Remus nearly bent double as Severus began to thrust. "Oh yes oh yes oh - "