The world seemed to slow down.  Everything around me faded away and all I could see was... 

 

Edited 5 September, 2014

This was the worst possible way to be woken up by Ron Weasley – in your bed with his fifteen year old daughter clutched in your arms.

“So, are you going to give me detention and make me clean the trophy room?” Al’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Or will I have to do that better than everyone else as well? Nothing I do is ever good enough for you!”

My trembling fingers reached for my wand in my pocket and I felt my heart plummet through the floor at the realization that I was in my pyjamas and my wand was under my pillow back in my room. 

 His words hit me as if I was smacked in the face. I would never be able to lie to him and try to convince him that it wasn’t true, that it never happened. I didn’t have the energy to do it anyway.

Don’t you remember what it was like when Rose was gone? Or when she came back? They were the longest six days of my life.

 “I’m not one hundred percent yet, but I’m getting there. Scorpius helps. A lot.”

“Dad!” Rose abruptly stood up from healing Auror Stephens’s broken ankle. She couldn’t hide the hurt in her voice. She closed her mouth and set her jaw, trying not to cry at his betrayal.

This was the moment to start talking, but my throat was tight and nothing came out. How could I describe the feelings of remorse, regret and helplessness?

“I can’t take it anymore – I’m locked in my own private Azkaban day after day!” 

I was staring blankly at Albus, trying to make my brain grasp this information. Eventually, my eyes wandered the room, taking in each of the Aurors, and I landed back on Al because Scorpius was refusing to look anywhere but into the far corner. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for the tears, but they didn’t come.

As a new generation of magic unfolds
There will be a child born with power untold
For only by the union of lines of evil and good
Will this power be unleashed upon the world

 Nothing, nothing in the world could have prepared me for this.

The overwhelming desire to protect Rose and our baby sped up my spine and shot like adrenaline down to my fingertips. I stroked the side of her face, needing to just touch her and make sure this was real.

“I thought you were going to propose! H-how does… this happen be-before one proposes, Malfoy?!”

Then everything went black.

“What is it? Is it Rose? The baby?” My eyes flashed to the monitors. Rose’s heart rate read one-forty and the baby was back up to one-seventy five. “Merlin, no…”

The pain seared down my left arm, essentially making it numb and completely useless. Turning sideways, I could see through the remaining death eaters to the hallway beyond.

“Please, please. I need to. I need to see. I’m a Healer.”

“That sort of curse, cruciatus flagrate, erm… wh-what could it have done to the baby? I mean, if Rose had been hit?”

“Hold it,” Dom was urgently trying to get everyone’s attention. “Wait one moment. Everyone. Listen!"

Even pulling all-nighters at the hospital and studying endlessly for final exams wasn’t as tiring as having a newborn; because after my shift or exams were over, I could sleep.