Welp, sorry for not updating ! I've been away, but I'm back now. I want to dedicate this chapter to Warriors, because you really made me smile, and I would not have written this chapter if it weren't for you. So thank you.
Wednesday 22nd February 2004
They'd been home a couple of days, but tension was still in the air between Hermione and Oliver. You could sense it at dinner, when Oliver left in the evening - instead of staying over. Neither one of them had brought it up but Harry and Ron had noticed it and they were starting to get annoyed that the couple hadn't showed any signs of clearing the mess up. Both of them were too stubborn, and too busy to sit down and have a proper conversation. Hermione had however made an appointment with Healer Montgomery, and her new midwife.
She'd finally gotten an owl at work to inform her that a midwife would be on hand at the birth and a couple of appointments in her last trimester, Hermione was grateful that someone she could rely on would be there - someone that had good old fashioned training and didn't need a wand or a spell to sort everything out. It reminded her of her mother, how easily she would've been able to sort things out. Everyone in the wizarding world relied heavily on magic, and seemed astounded that muggle's could even go about their daily lives .. sometimes Hermione missed the simplicity of washing a pot, or sending a letter: with a postage stamp, like normal, regular people.
"Harry! Ron!" Hermione called out, as she stepped through her front door that evening. She hoped, selfishly, that no one was home; she wanted an hour alone to watch some crappy muggle television, sit in her sweats and nurse the tub of ice cream she'd bought on her walk back home through the city. Officially she was entering her second trimester, and all she kept hearing at work from the other women in the office was how she'd gotten away with not having many symptoms so far. What little morning sickness she had, had come and go quickly, she'd not felt any muscle aches or tenderness anywhere.
No one replied to her shouting, and their coats or shoes weren't anywhere to be seen in the hallway, so she shrugged her thick overcoat off, hung it up and flopped onto the sofa. Ten minutes later she blinked her eyes open slowly to find she'd been asleep, but thankfully not for long. She knew she hadn't been sleeping well, but her nightmares had returned now that Oliver didn't stay the night as much. Staying at his was an option, but she always felt on edge in his apartment - it was a bachelor pad, and Hermione hated to think how many women had slept in his bed. He assured her it was under 50, but she knew the magic rule: 'divide by two and add 10' to the actual number it was. Oliver wasn't the sort of guy to have notches in his bed post, but Hermione knew he was the sort of guy to boast about his conquests to the guys on the team.
A new episode of 'Friends' was just starting when she heard the front door click open and shut again, she was wearing over sized grey sweat pants and a loose cotton tee - the fire was lit, so there was no reason for her to feel cold. Even if she kept randomly getting shudders, followed by involuntary cold sweats. Harry walked into the lounge, smiling at the sight of her with a spoon and an almost finished tub of chocolate ice cream.
"You look comfy, good day at the office?" Harry teased, unaware that she had actually been at the Ministry for 6 am - just so that she could leave at 4. She'd worked right through lunch as well, even though her new assistant seemed to disapprove. He'd gone out for lunch and come back with a chicken teriyaki salad and anti-oxidant fruit shake for her, but it was still sitting on her coffee table in the office when she'd left that evening. It was thoughtful of him, and it did sound good but she had too much work, and not enough appetite.
"I worked earlies, managed to be in the office before Kingsley." Hermione replied, watching Harry remove his jacket and leather Chelsea boots.
"How early?" His tone had changed, along with his expression. She wasn't looking after herself, her relationship was still on the rocks, and he wasn't impressed. If Oliver was going to brood, or do whatever he was doing, then someone needed to step in before she ended up in hospital.
Hermione bit her lip and closed one eye, as if to avoid the verbal lashing that Harry was about to give her. "6 am." The words tumbled out of her mouth quickly and she grabbed a pillow to hide behind, it was better than seeing the disappointed look on Harry's face.
"6 am? It takes you twenty minutes to get to work, thirty minutes to get ready.. So you were up at 5 am, and I know for a fact that you and Ron stayed up late watching some of that murder mystery crap you two like. Hermione you're not sleeping properly, or eating properly." He sighed, taking a seat next to her on the couch. "You know you need to take better care of yourself.."
Something inside Hermione snapped, how dare he tell her how to run her life - he wasn't her keeper, or her dad. She didn't need either of those things, and she certainly didn't need it from someone she'd been looking after for the past ten years!
"Don't you dare tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing! I worked early today so I could come home early and sit on the sofa, giving myself some TLC. Because I realise I need it - but I still need to complete ten hour working days! So thank you Harry, for your incredible maternity advice, I'm aware that you have been pregnant before therefore know exactly what advice is good advice." Her words dripped with sarcasm as she stood up, looked around and grabbed the remote - childishly stopping him from watching the tv, or even turning it off. Two minutes later and she was in her room, sat on the floor giggling to herself about how funny the whole situation was - Harry, giving her advice on her baby.
"FUCK!" She uttered louder than intended, as she tripped over something on her way down the stairs - she managed to grab onto the banister just in time, but it didn't stop her stomach from lurching in fear. Harry and Ron, who were sat on the sofa, heard her straight away.
"You ok Mione?" Ron called up, before going to see what the problem was when he didn't hear a reply. Harry followed him out into the hallway where Hermione was sat at the bottom of the staircase, trying to get her trainers on.
"Can one of you two idiots get me to St. Mungo's, right now? Get a taxi or something - please no magic." She was shaking as her fingers tried to tie the bows on her shoes, the boys knew something was wrong right away. Harry ran out onto the street, checking to see if there were any black cabs, before running to the telephone box and dialling for a cab.
"Harry's just getting a taxi, Mione what's happening?" Ron said breathlessly, watching Hermione grow paler and paler.
"I'm bleeding." She mumbled, tears rolling down her face now. Harry motioned to Ron that the cab had pulled up.
"Do you think you can walk?"
She nodded, pulling herself up, to fall right back down. He quickly ran forward and scooped her up, finding some unknown strength from somewhere. She lay limp in his arms as he pulled the front door shut and ran down the path to the iconic black cab, both boys managed to negotiate getting into the cab, and telling the driver where they needed to be. Ron even managed to not marvel at the payphone bolted to the inside of the taxi, he was way more concerned for Hermione.
"Come on, stick with us. Keep your eyes open. We're almost there. Come on." Harry held her hand, urging her to stay awake. "Don't you dare let go, not now. Your baby needs you."
She kept blinking, fighting the overwhelming need to go to sleep. As she lay, curled up in Ron's arms, she knew she'd lost the baby, there was no way she could be bleeding and everything be okay. Maybe she should've read more books, she had no idea what was going on right now - obviously she knew the normal symptoms of pregnancy, the ones she'd seen on tv or in films. But she was ashamed to admit she'd not bought one pregnancy book, or kept track of what was happening with the little jelly bean that was growing inside of her. The people around her were right, she wasn't taking care of herself and now because of her idiocy she was going to lose her and Ollie's baby.
"Where's Ollie?" She mumbled, completely disorientated.
"He'll be here soon, I promise." Harry squeezed her hand, trying to reassure her. He had no idea where Oliver was, and could only send an owl once they got to St. Mungos, so he continued to lie to Hermione - to keep her hopeful.
Oliver came running down the corridor, as he skidded up to the private ward he pushed the door open and saw Ron and Harry sat on two chairs outside of a closed door. "Is she in there?" His whole world had stopped when he got the owl, it felt like time was moving two times slower. Minutes felt like hours, seconds felt like days when he didn't know if Hermione was okay. He clicked the handle down on the door, walking into her hospital room. As a couple they needed to stop frequenting this place, hopefully their baby didn't have the same habits.
She was sleeping, with an IV tube poking into her skin, and two healers fussing over her. One of them was Healer Montgomery - who as per usual looked annoyed to see Oliver.
"How is she? What happened? How's the baby?" He quickly fired off questions, not stopping to ask who the woman was.
Healer Montgomery passed the tube and the needle onto the woman stood next to him, and turned to face Oliver. "She's had a small bleed, but it's okay. She's stable now, and the foetus seems completely unharmed by the ordeal. Unusual, but not impossible. Miss Granger has been putting her body under intense stress, causing her body to give her warning signs that she needs to look out for herself. I can presume that she was probably ignoring the earlier signs, such as the sweats and the fatigue. I recommend we keep her for 1-2 days, and then she returns home, but does not return to work for a full week. I'll let you manage that, though." The man almost looked pleased to give Oliver the impossible task of keeping Hermione from work, but the younger man shrugged it off. He knew Montgomery didn't like him.
Finally they both left the room, and Oliver was able to sit by her bed, holding her hand. She'd never looked so weak, so small. Her skin was paler than ever and all of the tubes poking in and out of her made her look inhuman, if that was possible. His mind started to run away with him and he couldn't forgive himself for how distant he'd been. He'd abandoned the mother of his child, his fianceé when she need him the most. The thought brought tears to his eyes, which he couldn't stop from falling and hitting Hermione's porcelain skin. The feel of something dripping against her skin gently brought Hermione to, and as she slowly opened her eyes she saw Oliver sat by her bedside. Harry hadn't been lying when he'd said that Oliver was on his way - he was right there in front of her.
"Ollie..?" She mumbled, her throat hoarse from the sobbing she'd been doing on the journey over to St. Mungo's. "Did we .." she took a deep breath, preparing herself for the worst. "Did we lose the baby?" She couldn't think of any other reason as to why Oliver would be crying. She couldn't really remember the last time she'd seen Ollie cry.
"Nope, our baby is a little fighter. But come on, he's got you and me for parents." Oliver grinned, of course he was cracking jokes at a time like this.
"Wait, did you say he?"
"Oh, I know it's going to be a he."
"Mhm, okay.." Hermione nodded, still slightly bewildered to her situation, medically and emotionally. "Hold up, why were you crying then?"
Oliver looked down, he'd been stroking his thumb across her hand throughout their conversation, but as soon as she asked him that he stopped. He figured he would have to be honest with her at some point, but he didn't think it was the right time to have such a heavy conversation. "I've .. I've been having doubts. About whether or not I'll be a good dad."
"What? How long have you been feeling like this..?"
"I dunno, it just nags at the back of my mind. And it's nothing to do with my Dad, he's an amazing father - always has been. I just don't know if I can live up to his standards, I want my child to have a dad just like him, and what if I can't be that person?" Oliver spoke quietly, his scottish accent slipping further and further away from him now. Hermione reached out and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders gently, her tiny frame enveloping his much larger one.
"Oliver Wood, you are an amazing man. And will make an extraordinary father, just because you want to live up to the great example your father has given you is not a bad thing. But if you aren't the same as him, you have not let me down, or our baby down." She took his hand and rested it on her belly, "We love you unconditionally, no matter your faults or your weaknesses. Neither of us know what we're doing, I mean I'm 22 for Merlin's sake - if someone had told me 5 years ago that I'd be having a baby and getting married at 22 I would've hexed them! It wasn't in my plan. You know that. But with you… Everything changes, you make me want to slow down, explore the world, experience every little moment. And I can't wait to do that with our little baby by our side, but we're going to make mistakes. Just like your dad let you fly right into the lake, his heart probably went through his chest at that point - but he knew you'd be okay. Children are made of tough stuff, just like our little guy has shown us tonight."
The man sat next to Hermione was not the same man she went on a date to the Hyde park fairground with, he was not the same man who proposed to her and he was not the same man he was ten minutes ago. He had a different approach now, now he knew he could conquer anything - because he had the girl he loved by his side.
"Merlin, look at me. I'm meant to be looking after you."
"Come on Wood, we knew that wasn't going to last." She winked, caressing her bump gently. They were going to be okay.