A/N: This fic is written for Esrelda Snape's Learning to Cope challenge from the detailed plot challenges. This fic is also written for the Multi-Chapter boot camp challenge, and the Long Haul Competition II, week 1.
Learning to Cope
Chapter 2 (prompt #001: Stood-up)
Angelina found her eyes drifting drowsily to the door. She couldn't see much of anything really: green from the healing robes melting with largely brown or black hair and almost invisible wands, thin scars that shimmered in the air, and the sterile white that painted the background.
The Delivery Room was one of three places in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries that largely resembled its Muggle counterpart; the others were the Emergency Operating Theatre, and the exclusively Muggle portion that treated those non-magical folk who managed to get on the wrong side of magic. It was a necessity, as magic hadn't developed to the point where they could carry out such delicate procedures without instrumental help, and recent developments made the improved items even look near-identical to their non-magical counterparts. In fact, a good portion of the equipment used in the Operating Theatre were purchased from the Muggle Industry, because the monumental risk of using magic upon life-threatening yet ill-defined wounds.
The Delivery Room, by contrast, was a little more of a hybrid since the Healers in that department largely knew what they would be coming into contact with. They still kept their spell casting to a minimum; babies drunk on magical residue had wreaked some interesting circumstances of havoc in the past. But it was a little brighter, with soft whirring noises and tuneless songs from the window-products of various joke shops. Those ranged from ones that had gone out of business soon after the hospital had first been built to the latest craze from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
If Angelina had been in a better condition, she would have been flattered to note a Wronski Feint replica in her spitting image…or how she had looked a year ago, playing for the Holyhead Harpies before taking a lead of absence in her pregnancy. It had been a mistake, she noted during those months, not have not pursued something more stable after leaving Hogwarts, because the end result was that she simply had too much time on her hands. George was used to doing a majority of the work around the flat, also being responsible for a good deal of the mess as he tinkered around with various odds and ends around midday when the stream of customers tapered off a little, only to return with a vengeance from around two in the afternoon. Angelina, for the most part, had spent her days out of the house, either training for an upcoming Quidditch Match, learning new moves or simply improving her overall fitness. The late evenings and nights they used to spend together comfortably – except when she was at home and he found his private time impaired by her presence.
She never thought though that he wouldn't come, but his face and the unmistakable red hair was yet to appear at the door. Pain had blurred her senses, but she felt sure that ginger could not be mistaken for chestnut brown – and the hands clutching and scrunching bed sheets would be taken tenderly, and she would grip hard enough to shatter bones and he would need a bottle of Skele-Gro to repair them. They had joked about it quite wholeheartedly two years back, and somehow their wonderings as to whether they wanted to extend their tiny family with a child always ended on a less than serious note.
But there she was, in the process of giving birth, and George was nowhere to be found. The other presences, all in green, moved around in and out of her vision, appearing at the tip and then vanishing again in the fleeting moments within which she was able to focus on any single image. The pain, dulled by the potion she had been administered – something she hadn't had a choice in but for quick births was purely optional – still spun her head and sent cold shivers down her spine, and the lethargy that snuck in had the world tethering on a very unstable balance.
Tears pricked the corner of her vision, further distorting the room. She needed George; she needed her husband here, with her now, holding her hand. But there was no ginger head of hair looking above the green. There was nothing gripping her hands save the slightly course material sneaking between her fingers as she blindly clutched. There was no sound of gentle murmurings of reassurance in her ears, or the off-key singing she sometimes came home to.
She tried to take a deep breath, but it came out broken. She was a strong woman, but it was starting to look as though her first child would defeat her. She closed her eyes, and the world finally went away save the assorted sounds that drifted through her ears with no real melody; she tried to imagine the sound of a baby gurgling, like little Teddy who sometimes came to watch her games with Harry Potter (although it had more to do with Ginny Wasley's presence on the team than her own), and the few nieces and nephews that sprung from her husband's side of the family.
Except there was nothing save pain, starting from her abdomen and back and radiating through to her toes. Maybe, she reflected wearily, she had been caught up in the glamour of a child, and reality was catching up. It wasn't what she had imagined; there hadn't been much of anything, no squirming, no pushing, and this pained drowsiness instead of the sharp teeth-gritting jabs she had been warned of.
She didn't often have nightmares; she was the one who awoke when George started crying out in the night, who ran her fingers through his curls until he quietened, sometimes cried or blabbered but mostly just closed his eyes, and fell asleep again to remember nothing the next morning. Of course, she sometimes saw the dead from the Battle at Hogwarts: the student corpses, some of whom she had tutored, others with whom she had shared some classes and a few even her friends. She saw the pain, the whimpering anguish in hollow eyes that stared back at her in loss, wondering how they'd stepped into a living hell. But she had played such a small role in the war she managed to block out even that…and yet, she was hearing whispers of death, of silence, of a still birth and of depression.
Maybe it was just a nightmare, and it was George's turn to wake up and hold her close. Maybe he was already doing it, because she was warm all of a sudden, comfortable with the nonsensical sounds fading slowly into the realm of sleep.
George followed Healer Bones into her office, a little stiff but successfully fighting off the hesitation that threatened to seep into his step. The last time he had been present at time of birth was for Ginny's at three years of age. He'd missed Victorie's; it had been so unexpected that Bill had opened the door with a freshly born child when he arrived at Shell Cottage, and Dominique had been born not even a month ago in France. It was, he told himself, perfectly reasonable to be nervous; the Firewhiskey he had downed seemed determined to prove him wrong however, as everything seemed glaringly bright, and the Assistant Healer who quickly stood upon the Healer opening her office door looked entirely too flustered to be normal in a professional setting.
'Oh, I'm so sorry,' the girl, someone George didn't recognise, cried as she scrambled in the uniform robes for her wand.
'It's fine,' Susan said gently, and the Assistant quickly summoned the parchments back to her. 'You can stay,' she added, as the other made to leave. 'We'll just be in the conference room.'
She gestured at an inconspicuous door at the bottom of a small staircase to one side of the room. The portrait looked remarkably like her, though slimmer (and a little hollowed as well), more contrasting and less well defined. Perhaps a distant relative then, one who had played a role in St Mungo's history; History of Magic was one subject which neither George nor Fred had ever cared for…except when utilising the opportunity to brainstorm for new joke ideas.
Susan's robes clung to her a little, contrasting to George's own ones that billowed in his wake, as the two climbed the stairs. The Healer opened the door – unlocked, because it pushed inward at her soft touch, and stepped into the small yet bright space.
George followed, and she shut the door behind her. 'This room is warded,' she explained, gesturing to a comfortable chair while she bustled around the room's few shelves to prepare some tea. Judging from the look on the packet, it appeared to be laced with a mild Calming Drought, and neither that nor the Healer's words helped matters in the least. 'It's a place where Healers and family relatives can talk in private without attracting the attention of or disturbing other inhabitants.' She paused, then added on the look on George's face – which she, admittedly, came across far too often: 'Ms Johnson and the baby are both sleeping right now.'
The relief was obvious on his face, and George didn't bother trying to hide the cheesy grin that appeared. 'That's great,' he declared, standing up abruptly. 'That's – why was everyone panicking?'
It was a little bit of an overstatement, because all of them had seen far more drastic examples of hysteria. Still, Susan's face remained kindly yet sombre, regarding the dizzying relief that the other showed. A little too dizzying to be from a clear mind, she noted, adding some Hangover-Relief potion to the beverage as well and then sitting herself. 'It is good,' she agreed, 'but unfortunately there's more to the situation than that, and that's what I need to discuss with you.'
She handed the cup over, urging him to drink and he regarded him a moment before doing so, eyes passing across the rim as though readings its contents and agreeing with their use. 'I need a straight answer,' he said after a few gulps. 'It's always driven me crazy; not knowing things. I need to know what's wrong, in the simplest terms you can manage.'
'Are you sure?' Susan asked, concerned and a little taken aback from the bluntness. It was rarely a good idea; easing people into the knowledge of life-changing circumstances was generally the way to soften the inevitable blow, but she could understand that there those who could not abide it, those within whom the seeds of paranoia would grow out of control until the truth seems insignificant to the images their imagination had granted them.
'Yeah, I'm sure.'
It seemed like George Weasley was one of those people.