This is an extra credit piece set for a class at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (challenges and assignments). It's a sister one-shot to Explosions.
Subject: Potions
It hit me like a tonne of bricks. A crushing pain, grinding through me, feeling like it was turning my bones to dust. I felt like I was being placed in a bowl and a mortar was twisting a turning at my body, reducing me to a fine powder. It was searing, agonising, yet I knew good was going to come. It simply had to.
I had heard of pains like this, seen them first hand in Healer Training and treating people after the Battle of Hogwarts. Yet I never thought I would experience them myself. They were crippling, making me scream and yell, wanting a safe haven from them. I curled my fingers round my husband's hands, squeezing and holding onto him for dear life.
This amount of pain wasn't normal for my situation, I knew that. It normally doesn't last this long either. For fourteen long hours I had stood this excruciating, crushing pain. For fourteen long hours I had cried and screamed my throat raw. For fourteen long hours I awaited my miracle.
The doctors were at a loss for the answer. They didn't know why this was happening, other than the obvious reasons. My pain was ten times more extreme than most women, it lasting longer, seemingly endless in fact. They were still ricocheting through my body, grinding and crushing my bones.
Everything else happened in a blur. It made little sense to me. They Healers and Midwifes were shouting instructions at me. I followed them, not knowing why. The pain intensified as I was instructed to push. I pushed and pushed until I heard my safe sound: a baby's cry.