:::IMPORTANT NOTE: there is discussion of different birthing experiences. Although they are both criticized negatively between the people who are comparing them, there is no wrong way to give birth. Every mother's experience is different, and in no way makes her less of a woman or a mother if she does not make the same choices another mom would make. It is never ok to criticize a parent's choice unless you feel that the child is in danger physically mentally or emotionally. If you want a good video, "End Mommy Wars" and "The Mother Hood" by Similac are both really great.:::
Neville watched them, and wondered if they had looked at them like that. He would like to believe there was more love than bewilderment in their eyes, but knowing them he had little hope.
He didn't like them looking at his daughter like that- like they were struggling with the concept of her existence. It wasn't hard, he wanted to scoff.
Alice stared at the tiny human her son had apparently helped create. When she had heard that whore was expecting, she began waiting for the fall out. For her to have an accident on the stairs. For a slew of lovers to come forward. For all the darkness in her to strangle the new life she knew her son wasn't ready for. And here she was. Bold as brass, healthy, squalling at the healers. She was a pretty thing, of course. Pretty like her mother. What a waste, Alice thought. Her son could have done so much nicer. But she would rather deal with the girl's looks than have her inherit her mother's mean spirit. That could be squashed out quite quickly once Neville came to his senses and returned home.
Frank was a little more tender towards the little one, but he couldn't help but feel trepidation for her. Neville was never the most responsible of boys. The girl had been conceived far too quickly for his liking. Granted, Neville's conception happened a month before Frank and Alice were wed, but they never made the same mistake twice. But he had his mother to help them, and he had gone back to work almost immediately. Alice was only at home for a month before they yanked him off the teat and gave him a bottle. Alice wasn't the kind of woman to wallow around in diapers and dummies, and he knew this Dru girl wasn't either but for entirely different reasons. He would, of course, be as much help to his son as he could be, but he hoped that his son would at least show some contrition before they got dumped with their granddaughter.
"Belladonna."
Alice looked up so quickly she felt something in her neck snap and burn. There he was. Her sweet, foolish little boy...but no. This wasn't him, surely? He was so tall, and firm where he stood. This suave man, this con artist persona, that couldn't be her son.
He looked well rested. He looked confident. He looked like a man with a plan. It couldn't possibly be her son.
"Belladonna Hermione. She's beautiful isn't she?" Neville walked over to the window to look in at her. Her black curls lay soft against her little red forehead as she protested the nurse's ill treatment of her. "Seven pounds, twelve ounces, twenty inches long."
"That's lovely, dear." Alice said, trying to sound genuinely interested. The uppity sounding name irked her though, and giving her that Muggleborn girl's name was nothing short of cruel. Even in the most modern families, the firstborn daughter was given a maternal figure's name."And how is her mother?"
"Dru is wonderful, strongest woman I know. A nurse tried to make her take one of those pain relieving potions. She kicked him in the teeth, said her baby wasn't going to come into the world addicted to some watered down painkiller."
"Oh, that's...something. I had a caesarian."
"I know." Neville gritted his teeth. His mother had often complained that he was a mama's boy before he was born, and she demanded a caesarian when he missed his due date by a day. She said she was tired of 'dealing with pregnancy.'
"Dru was a little more traditional. No pain killers. Immediate skin to skin. Delayed cord clamping. Did you do either of those two? I know you were alright with the meds."
"No," Alice shrugged, genuinely uninterested. "You were all gooey. I told the nurses to give you a bath right away."
"I'm sure," Neville said.
"When can we hold her?" Frank asked, irritated with his son. Frank hadn't attended Neville's birth, he had come to the hospital after work. Woman's stuff, he thought. Although it convinced him that maybe his son wasn't as squeamish as he thought.
"Oh," Neville looked at him from the corner of his eye. "Oh, no. You won't be holding her."
"I beg your pardon?!" Alice gasped, stepping away from her son in astonishment.
"I said, you won't be holding her. I've a terrible fear of someone dropping her, you see."
"Is this about Uncle Algie?" Frank fumed. "He was never right in the head! We thought you were a squib, what else were we to try?"
"Accepting me for who I was, for a start." Neville tapped at the glass idly with a fingernail, smiling goofily at his baby girl. "Although NOT leaving your child with someone you casually describe as 'not right in the head' would be a step in the right direction."
"You listen here, Neville Longbottom-"
"Oh, it's Black, actually. No, we decided to keep Dru's last name. The Blacks were originally Matrilineal anyway, and when we found out we were having a daughter we took it as a sign to bring back old traditions."
"You bastard!" Frank said, slamming Neville into the wall across from the nursery window. "Do you realize what you've done?!"
"Apparently made the right decision," Neville said, shoving his father away from him, "in denying a violent man access to my baby."
"Neville, what have they done to you?" Alice sobbed.
"Loved me? Cared for me, even when I was weak? Helped me to be a better man, a greater man? Protected me? Given me something worth fighting for?"
"What is worth fighting for?" Alice wiped angrily at her tears. She was not a weepy damsel in distress, she told herself even as the tears wouldn't stop coming.
"My daughter, for one thing."
"I get it," Frank said, pacing, trying to calm himself before he flattened his son's face. "I get it, you're angry that your mother and I worked, we were busy, you don't feel that you got the time you deserved with us. But you can't just deny us our granddaughter!"
"It's that whore, isn't it?" Alice got up in his face. "I told you, I told you Neville, I said she was no good! Who tells you who you can and cannot have contact with? How is that a healthy relationship? I raised you to have more self respect than this!"
"No," Neville said darkly, but calmly. He strode back to the window and looked down at his now sleeping daughter. "My grandmother raised me to believe that I was worthless. Useless. Not even worth my parent's attention. My friends raised me to believe in my own capabilities. That I was acceptable the way I was. That there were other ways to be brave, or intelligent, that ambition to be something other than what was expected was not to be punished. That I was worth loving, even when I made mistakes. Do you see the difference?"
"You're a coward taking a coward's way out." Frank sneered.
"I'm a father. And I choose who my daughter is exposed to until she is old enough to discern for herself."
"What will you do?" Alice scoffed. She knew that she was just pushing him away, but if she backed him to the edge he would always run back to her. Always. "You think you can just take care of a baby? You work. You think that strumpet you married is going to raise a manicured fingernail for a squalling infant?"
"Oh, I work from home. She'll be mostly with me anyway. Dru is mostly a social networker, so her schedule is more sporadic than mine." Neville smiled a bit at his sleeping baby. "I have a lab at home anyway, and until we're ready to take on more work she'll be with me. Bonding is important, you know, for a magical child's core. Did you know that? I read it in a parenting book. I had to purchase one, you know, I know we never had any at the manor, obviously."
"How dare you?!"
"I dare for my daughter," Neville sneered. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and check on my wife. She's tired, and I want to make sure that she's comfortable. But by all means, stay. Look all you want. The nurses won't bring her to Dru for another half hour or so for breastfeeding.
He didn't miss the grimace of distaste on their faces. Peasants.
"You have twenty nine minutes to look at the granddaughter you lost before she was born. I will have her her whole life. She will always know she is loved. She could be a Squib, and she will be loved. No matter what her capabilities, or her appearance, or her nature, my daughter will be loved.
"Go ahead," he tossed over his shoulder as he moved down the echoing hallway. "Appreciate what you've lost. I have all the help and love I need with my family."
"We're your real family, though," Alice sobbed.
"You could have been," he said, stopping outside of a door. "You should have been. It's too little too late. I have more love in my life and have learned more of love in the past three years than you showed me through my first seventeen. I needed you when I was small, and afraid, but I'm better than I was then.
"And I have outgrown you."