This one shot was writted for the "Phobias Challenge".


Poppy Pomfrey had a secret she had not told anyone. She had an irrational fear- maieusiophobia- fear of childbirth.

She had always noticed the irony of it- the Matron nuse of Hogwarts- afraid of childbirth. She had seen many ghastly diseases and jinx results in her day and none of this scared her- yet something as simple as childbirth could scare her so much. Childbirth to her was much worse than any dark hex or jinx she had saw in her day.

Of course, there was a reason behind her fear. She wasn't too illogical. The fear had developed when she was ten years old- her mother had died while giving birth to Poppy's little sister- Anna. Poppy had been right outside the hospital room- some dingy hospital room in Wales. She was a half blood and her muggle mom wanted to obviously go to a muggle hospital. But ever since she had heard the words "I'm sorry Poppy dear- your mother had passed away while conciving Anna", spoken by her dad, Poppy had been afraid of childbirth. She had never told anyone this fear of course. She was afriad to come across as silly or even superstitious.

When she was younger and in training for medical care at St. Mungos people had told her that she was so talented- she would have made a great healer. But she couldn't- working there, no matter what, had the risk of perhaps having to help with childbirth or view it. And she knew she would never be able to handle that. The pain would be too great.

Of course she had come close before to having to deal with childbirth while working at Hogwarts. One year- many years ago a seventh year Slytherin girl- Carolina Grey- had gone into labor while at Hogwarts. Poppy almost had to assist, causing her to almost have a panic attack though, luckily Poppy was saved in time, when it was discovered that Carolina would, in fact, be able to travel to St. Mungos in time, before she went into labor. Poppy was overly relieved and joyed with this fact, of course, reulting her to be in quite a pleasent mood for a few weeks following.

Poppy, obviously never had children herself- hell, she had never married because of the fear either. While some may find it completely irrational, she however found it just fine. But that's why she worked at Hogwarts. The students at Hogwarts were like her children. They put her motherly instict to perfectly good use. She was able to care for them and treat them like they were her own children. This to her was a perfect job and sometimes even made her forgot about her Maieusiophobia.


Okay- I'm not a huge fan of this, I think it's a bit short (there was a 1000 word limit) but I had to edit a part out and change it because the part actually caused to go over. Also some reason Spell Check is not working so if there are bad mistakes I am so sorry. Anyway- I hope you enjoyed!