Song for this chapter- Blue Skies by The Workday Release
HPOV (11 years prior)
"I think today is the day," I sighed, setting the morning paper aside and turning to look at Minerva sitting to my right.
"They day for what?" Severus asked from my left as he scooped the paper up to read himself. "Surely not to party as our newest minister is suggesting."
"That headline amused you as well did it?" Minerva asked at the same time that I said. "It's time to properly reset the wards at the Ley lines."
"I thought we had agreed that you'd let that go until after she's born?" Severus asked, turning his full attention away from the paper.
"She?" Minerva chirped excitedly before I could say anything. "You've found out the gender then? Have you decided on a name? Poppy wouldn't even give me a solid due date. Won't you tell me?"
"Minerva," I chided though I could not retain the light laugh that bubbled up with her excitement. "One question at a time, and I promise to answer them in a moment. Severus first however as he has his grouchy face on now."
"You're magic is still all over the place," he pointed out quietly. "Surely you don't want to risk leveling the castle as you reset the wards."
"I haven't had an instances of accidental magic for nearly this entire trimester," I pointed out carefully. "Not to mention I am due on the 12th, so that would be two weeks of the term with me unable to properly feel the wards and the inhabitants of the castle. That seems like an unnecessary risk with a large group of underage wix running about."
"It's still a week until the students come," he pointed out. "Would you be willing to at least wait until another day as I am already engaged to be in the shop negotiating along side Remus with Slug and Jigger's over the buyout."
"I do intend to have Minerva with me," I explained softly. "I won't be doing it alone, and there isn't anything particularly risky about adding a drop of my blood to the center of the Ley line crossroads."
"But there are seven lines converging there, it is a very high level of power," he whispered. "What if you have a magic outburst at the moment of contact?"
"If I might interrupt," Minerva said quietly, her brows knit in obvious concern over having her head bitten off by my husband. "We had considered that possibility and built contingency plans around it. I am not only accompanying her into the deepest bowls of the castle because I am the deputy head, but to cast safety wards and be on hand to address any issues that may arise."
"I would feel much better if I were to be present," Severus hedged.
"Minerva is a capable witch Severus," I chided him. "And you must remind yourself that we are living in a time of peace. You are behaving as if the war were still on. Neither your wife nor you daughter are in any danger today. So go, finalize the staffing plans for our newest branch without worry, and I will see you this evening for dinner."
Properly chided he offered me a soft smile and a buss on the cheek before he stood from the table and made his way out of the hall. For a moment Minerva just watched him walk away with a look of wonder on her face, likely at how easily I had redirected his impending fit of temper, before turning her excited eyes on me. I held up my hand to stop her from showering me in a downpour of questions again.
"So the 12th is the expected due date," I told her quietly. "We have not chosen a name. Call it superstition if you will, but it felt to presumptive; To me at least. For Severus I think it was more due to a feeling of wanting to see the child before picking a name."
"Presumptive?" she questioned softly.
"Well, I just can't help think about what happened to Lily with Harry," I whispered. "Thank Merlin Rose was born perfectly healthy. Not to mention I've spent so much of my life under the understanding that I would never have children, that naming one I have never held in my arms? I just couldn't. Even now as I feel her moving about inside of me, I can't quite believe this is real."
"Oh Hermione," she said softly before patting my hand affectionately. "Don't you worry. You are going to have a beautiful little girl to hold soon enough, and then this worry you feel now with seem quite silly. I am sure the pair of you will give her a perfect name as well."
"Thank you Minerva," I said as I pulled my napkin from my lap. "Shall we make our little journey then? I'd like to finish this quickly so I might enjoy a nice bath before sitting down to plan for the staff meeting tomorrow morning."
-'-'-
Hike would even have been too friendly a word to describe the long walk we went on. It felt that we had been walking for a century by the time I even truly felt the magic of the Ley lines rippling through the air. Prior to this morning I had not been aware so much castle existed beyond the dungeons that I was familiar with. There were several levels of dungeons within the bowels of the castle that clearly not seen use in this century and by the dank smell alone I found I had little interest in exploring them.
The descent even lower into the castle seemed more taxing due to approaching it at a waddle, and I could tell that our walk so far had not tired Minerva in the slightest. Between the excessive weight on my frame, and the sharp pain that was growing in my lower back from all of the stairs I felt like we had been walking for days. When my skin began to tingle with the growing magic in the air I was unable to suppress the sigh of relief that came.
"Yes we are nearly there," Minerva chuckled. "I did not think about all the stairs in your condition. I apologize."
"At least now the fun begins," I said with a somewhat pained smile. "I've been looking forward to this since you told me about the lines. I had no idea about them, and that feels more than a bit upsetting considering how many times I have read Hogwarts A History."
"Well, when you consider the amount of defensive magic they provide…" Minerva trailed off as she pushed up a great wooden door that looked to be extremely heavy.
I vaguely noted the creaking noise as the room was reveled to me. Intellectually I knew that the Ley lines were actually running below us, and what I was seeing was a construct to represent them and give a base for the protective magic that had been woven over this point, rather than the lines themselves, but it was still awe inspiring. There were seven different lines that were evenly spaced from one another that crossed in the center of the room before continuing on their way.
When I had pictured it I had imagined seven white lines that all crossed on the floor with some sort of contraption that held the blood of all of the former headmasters' and headmistresses' blood and would soon hold mine, perhaps a bowl. I had not pictured a great white crystal that clearly held that blood in it's center with a series of seven crystals floating above it, each illuminated with it's own Ley line. Instead of bisecting on just one level they seemed to be stacked like chakras.
"Muladhara, Swadhistana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddha, Anja, Sahasara," I murmured as I walked slowly into the room, my eyes locked on the sight before me.
"Ruby, Carnelian, Topaz, Emerald, Sapphire, Tanzanite, Garnet," I noted as I viewed the magical structure from the doorway. "It hadn't occurred to me that they would structure it as such, but with seven lines it makes sense, but I wonder, do they behave like the chakras?"
"If you mean by how they emit magic, yes to a certain extent," Minerva said as she came to stand beside me. "Albus explained his understanding with Westernized terms, but I must admit it was quite nice to hear you name them properly. Do you perhaps have a favorite chakra? I know we all ought to like them evenly to be balances, but I've always found myself connected most strongly with the throat chakra."
"I don't have a favorite per say, but I am inexplicable adverse to the third eye chakra," I said with a laugh. "It oft makes me think of divination, and that irritates me."
"Fair," She chuckled. "I've always thought that a wooly branch of magic. Though I suppose there are those that would find the magic we are about to use to be strange in it's own right."
"Not strange, just old," I said with a shrug. "I wonder if it was kept out of books for being blood magic as well?"
"There is that," Minerva nodded as she produced a small silver dagger from her pocket. "Just a tiny bit of blood though. Poppy assured me that we need not worry about it effecting you in your current state because it is such a small amount of blood."
"Perhaps the safety wards first," I said with a chuckle. "Severus would be quite mad if we even pricked my finger before taking precaution. He's been a Nervous Nelly since the excitement of my first trimester."
"I forget that he has never been around a pregnant witch before," she laughed. "If he had he would realize that the fluctuations you had, while more powerful than average, were not all that uncommon. And of course, as expected based on other cases they have dwindled out of existence as your daughter's magical core has become more solidified as its own entity."
Minerva handed me the dagger before drawing her wand and beginning to cast a series of protective wards around the cavern. There were momentary flashes of yellow and red light as he wards took effect but the room inevitably returned to the vaguely purple glow it had when we first entered. I found myself distracted from her and instead drawn closer to the apex of the construct. A tingling sensation that somehow reminded me of how I used to feel as a child when I suspected the outcome of any given scenario began in the base of my spine and began to spiral out through my body.
"Alright, we're ready," Minerva said, drawing my focus back to her.
When I looked at her I realized I had walked several paces closer to the construct without realizing it. Was I drawn to the magic of the Ley lines? Should I be concerned about that? I couldn't be sure.
"So just to cover it one more time," I said as I properly gripped the dagger. " I prick my finger, deposit a drop or two, but no more than that, of my blood into the crystal basin, and then I say the spell and it's done?"
"Yes," Minerva nodded. "And then you will feel sensations roll through you as each Ley line reacts to your blood and ties you in to the wards. Each one only lasts a second or two and then you will feel completely normal again."
"Remind me again how it will feel," I said. "So I don't freak out over nothing."
"First you feel a shock of excitement or passion," Minerva explained, her eyes focused off into middle space as she thought of her own experience with the Ley lines. "Then you feel refreshed as if you've just taken a great kip. Then in succession you feel joy, love, peace, clarity, and something like rapture. And then you just feel the castle until you make the choice to tune it out."
"Do you still feel it even though you are not the acting headmistress anymore?" I wondered aloud.
"To an extent, but it is significantly duller." She explained. "I anticipate losing touch with it altogether once you have added your blood."
"Well I suppose its time we let you have a bit of peace isn't it?" I laughed as I quickly punctured the pointer finger on my wand hand.
I handed her the dagger back as the blood began to bead on the tip of my finger. I turned as quickly as I could with a distorted center of gravity and began walking toward the crystal basin once more. Immediately the electric feeling in my spine returned but I did my best to ignore it as I closed the distance.
I wondered vaguely what I looked like when I reached the side of the bowl and the light of the seven jewels would have to be illuminating me with how close I stood. I also wondered, as I looked down, how it was possible that all of the blood that had been deposited over the years was still wet in the basin. It should be dried to the edges by now shouldn't it? I suppose that's magic for ya, I thought to myself as I brought my hand up over the basin and turned it to the side to let my blood drop in.
"Fianto duri protego totalum," I whispered.
I was struck by sensation the moment my hand was directly over the center of the Ley line crossing point, but it was not anything like what Minerva had described. Instead a cramping pain erupted in my back and spread quickly through my body. I grabbed the edges of the basin to try to stop myself from falling when my legs began to shake. Distantly I heard a voice calling out in pain that must be mine.
"Hermione?" Minerva cried, and I turned my head to the side in time to see her dropping to her knees at my side.
When did I end up on the ground I wondered before clenching my eyes shut and gritting my teeth to try to stop another cry as another wave of pain hit me accompanied by pressure in my pelvis. It passed in a moment and then I was able to breathe again and try to take in my surroundings. I was kneeling at the base of the crystal basin with Minerva at my side and her hand on my forehead as if my temperature would somehow tell her what was wrong with me. And my legs were wet? I looked down and saw a great wet patch on my robes.
"I think I may have wet myself," I said in as calm a voice as I could manage. "I was not prepared for the pain."
"What pain?" she asked at the same time that I was hit with another wave of it.
"Aaaah!" I cried before grabbing her wrist to pull her hand off of my face. "That pain! What in the name of Merlin?"
"Hermione you are hurting my wrist," Minerva said stiffly, and I promptly released her.
"I'm sorry," I panted. "What is happening."
"This is going to sound insane," Minerva said as she stared at a puddle that was forming beneath me. "But I think you might be in labor."
"You're right, that sounds insane.," I said, laughing weakly in the reprieve of pain before another wave of it hit me almost immediately. "Gods, you've got to be wrong… right?"
It wasn't exactly proper, but I pushed my robes to the side a bit so I could reach up inside them without fully exposing myself to Minerva. I pushed my knickers aside, with the intention of trying to check myself for dilation, or something, to try and disprove her point. Instead I was confronted with the impossible circumstance of what felt like a crowning head.
"What in the name of Merlin?" I shrieked. "Get Poppy, and Severus, right now!"
"I don't think I should leave you," Minerva pointed out delicately.
"Well I can't get up and hike to the infirmary with my daughter trying to force her way out of my vagina," I snapped as the pain and pressure just continued to grow. "And I'll be damned if I am going to give birth in the bowels of the castle without my healer or my husband."
"I don't understand how it is happening so fast," Minerva winced. "Can you focus long enough to drop the apparition wards so I can get them here faster?"
"I think so," I hissed with my eyes and teeth clenched shut.
The pain had ceased to be waves and was instead just one long wail trapped inside me. The pressure was growing stronger and stronger in my pelvis but I tried to push it from my mind and focus instead on the wards. I felt them waver and then collapse and I breathed a short sigh of relief before dropping down so I was on all fours and trying to just rock through the pain. It was funny, in a way that was not at all funny, that I could not for the life of me remember anything from the birthing class Severus and I had gone through with Poppy.
I was vaguely aware of a popping noise that meant Minerva had left, but the majority of my mind was focused on just trying to survive the pain. It felt like my body was splitting in half. The rocking seemed to help ease it just a bit, so I kept doing that while trying to just breath though it all.
When several minutes had passed and I was still alone, it occurred to me that there was a very real possibility of having to deliver my daughter by myself in this cavern. So I tried to focus on the business at hand. Despite the pain I climbed awkwardly out of my knickers and set them aside. I considered laying down because that was how a hospital delivery would take place, but all of my instincts told me to stay on all fours so I stayed that way.
I spent another few minutes fighting the urge to push, and rocking through the pain as I waited for them to show up. Surely Minerva had at least found Poppy by now? Why was I still all alone down here. I tried, I honestly tried not to push, but eventually it seemed my body had other things in mind.
When I felt my body begin to do what came naturally despite my own wishes I reached down again to assess the situation. I could feel more than just the crown of her head now and I fought the urge to panic. Yes, I was going to deliver her all by myself in the bowels of the castle, because she was coming right now!
I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to do next, but I knew that I shouldn't just let her drop as she came out, so I tried to keep my hand cupped on her head. First at the top when she was barely beginning to push out, then along the side, and ultimately I found myself cradling her neck as she was pushed out of my body. It was a surreal moment of pain and confusion mixed with joy and awe as I pushed her free, and my other hand came flying down to take the rest of her weight in hand so she was properly supported, as if I had done this a thousand times before. It made no sense, but my body seemed to know what it was supposed to do.
In a strange and exhausted fog I lifted her up so I could see her. She had a shock of black hair on top of her head and her eyes were screwed shut as if in announce. Her mouth opened up and I felt a wave of relief flow through me when she began to wail. She could breathe. She was fine. Everything was okay despite the extraordinary circumstances of her unexpected birth.
Again, some strange instinct told me what to do, and I pushed the top of my robes to the side and popped my breast out of my bra before guiding her there. I watched in awe as my newborn daughter first nuzzled and then instinctive latched on to my nipple and began to feed for the first time in her life. It was utterly surreal to be kneeling next to the Ley line crossroads holding a child who was not due to be born for three more weeks and watch her eat as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
I looked up from the amazing sight when I heard a popping noise. Minerva appeared with Severus and Poppy each holding one of her hands. Poppy lurched forward with her medical bag in town but Severus and Minerva just shared at me, frozen in place. Minerva seemed to be in shock, but Severus looked like he was seeing the sun for the first time.
"Merlin, I thought I had enough time to collect them both," Minerva whispered. "I obviously should have brought Poppy and then gone after Severus."
"She's here," Severus said in astonishment as he came over to kneel beside me. "You're amazing. You're both amazing."
"Would you like to do the honors of cutting the cord?" Poppy asked Severus and he shook his head numbly. "Alright, Let me just do it really quickly… there we go. Hermione why don't we have Severus hold her and we'll lay you down so you can deliver the placenta."
"Sure, sure," I agreed dumbly as I stared at Severus.
He was so gentle as he took our daughter, and his eyes never left her face. He looked enraptured, and I could completely understand. She was beautiful. She was perfect. I knew exactly what we should name her.
"Juliet," I said at the same time Severus said "Emmaline."
We looked at each other and broke into helpless laughter.
"Emmaline Juliet Snape?" he asked softly.
"Emma for short," I agreed.
"Hello Emma," Severus murmured before kissing her forehead. "You're going to be a trouble maker aren't you?"