Guest 1 and arabellagrace, I hope this chapter relieves you.
viola, I hope I didn't make you wait too long.
zeeksmom, yes, that French cousin is a very nasty individual.
angstar, well, a serial story has to have some cliffhangers.
Guest2, a little violent toward Hermione but I can understand the frustration some readers feel toward her.
I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Read on to find out what happens to our brave protagonists! Please tell me what you think. Reviews make me happy.
Lucius felt warmth. It was coming from somewhere, teasing his consciousness to full wakefulness. His brain pinpointed the location of the warmth, adding in the light—his eyelids. The sun. He forced the lids upward, the bright sunlight making him feel dizzy even though he was lying down…in a hospital bed. Mungo's. He was in St. Mungo's. Why?
"About time you came around," a familiar voice said. Lucius moved his head slightly to the side, causing twinges of pain. Calvin Yaxley was studying him dispassionately, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped loosely between them. "You probably caused your son to get his first grey hairs."
"Where is Hermione?" Lucius rasped, his throat parched, his vocal cords swollen and sore.
"Alive. He really did a number on you, didn't he?"
Lucius struggled to sit up, winced heavily as his back burned, stretched. Calvin levitated him and adjusted the bed upward, then set his friend back down with a none-too-gentle thump.
"Bastard," Lucius said, but there was little heat in it. "How is it that Azkaban's lost one of its most popular residents?"
"That potion you gave Potter proved that Amelia's baby is magical, as well as that I'm the father—as you well know. Your haste of action is touching."
The sarcasm rolled off Lucius' tender back without issue. "We had to wait until she was far enough along to detect the baby's own magic."
"Uh huh. Because you weren't the slightest bit pissed off that I said nothing to you about the ashwinder nest that was my personal life." Calvin looked unimpressed, but Lucius just sniffed.
"You hardly look the worse for the wear for it," he scoffed, then turned his mind back to more pressing matters. "Where is my wife?"
A slightly worried look passed over Calvin's face, but it was quickly covered by his impassive mask. "In hospital, same as you. Her case was a bit more…difficult than yours."
That was twice now that Calvin hadn't mentioned the baby at all. Lucius felt a wave of anger and grief and impotence at the implication of that, struggled to get himself out of the bed. "I need to see her."
"Not so fast, friend." Calvin's hand was steady against his shoulder, gently restraining him. "I think you'd better stay right where you are. You're not supposed to exert yourself at all for another day—besides, I believe Draco wants to talk to you about Hermione himself. He should be along shortly."
"And I'm supposed to wait like a good little boy for my son to tell me what's wrong with my wife?" Lucius snarled. "I don't think so. Where is my wand?"
Calvin sighed. He had expected this. "Are you up for a walk?"
In twenty minutes Lucius was dressed, his mind forcing his hands to work despite the lingering tremors from the Cruciatus and the pain whenever the muscles in his back moved. Calvin was keeping an eye on the door, aware that Lucius would tear the hospital apart before he would stop looking for Hermione. Therefore, to his way of thinking, he was doing them all a service by taking him to her.
"Ready?" he asked in a clipped tone, wordlessly proffering his friend's wand to him.
Lucius grasped the curly maple, the surge of warmth as familiar as breathing to him, and nodded. "Let's go."
The sight of the pair of them raised a few eyebrows as they navigated the halls with less than Lucius' usual speed, Yaxley's hand steady at his elbow. It was lowering to rely on someone else for assistance, but better that than sitting, to Lucius' way of thinking. At least Calvin wouldn't bring it up again, one of those unspoken tenets of their friendship. Nonetheless, they had almost reached the doors when a Healer attempted to stop them.
"Excuse me—"
"Just don't." Calvin Yaxley's tone was dead, and the Healer paused mid-step.
"But the paperwork—"
"Put down that he discharged himself," Calvin retorted loudly over his shoulder as he helped his friend out the door.
"But you said she was in hospital," Lucius began, and Calvin cut him off.
"A Muggle hospital. I meant what I said when I said I hoped you were up for a walk."
Lucius processed that, turning over what it could mean. "Who treated her?"
"Miriam Strout and Hippocrates Smethwyck. And Draco. Who, I hear, was quite argumentative over her course of treatment."
Silence lapsed between them as they moved slowly through the Muggle streets. Both were used to ignoring any odd looks from Muggles, although they didn't look too exceptional in black suits, if their coats were a little over-long for Muggle fashion. At least they weren't in robes.
After what should have been a ten minute walk but which took twenty, they were finally outside St. Mary's hospital in Paddington. Yaxley moved them both to the visitor's desk, removing his hand finally from Lucius' elbow when it seemed that that wizard was capable of standing unassisted.
"We're here to visit a patient, Hermione Malfoy. My wife." Lucius' voice was slightly less controlled on the last, and Calvin said nothing but watched his friend carefully. He was still unsteady on his pins, but Calvin had no desire to provoke Lucius into drawing his wand. Best to let him see her, and quickly.
The receptionist tapped at her keyboard and pulled up the details. "She's on the fourth floor, room 408. Only family permitted to visit," she added, eyeing Calvin over her glasses.
"He's family," Lucius said brusquely, then shoved away from the desk, heading for the lifts. Calvin glided soundlessly to take his elbow again, but let Lucius punch the button viciously, waited what seemed like an age for Muggles to enter and exit the lift before they finally stopped at level four. They walked down the hallway to the right, counting rooms silently until the numbers 408 on a placard next to the door let them know they were in the right place.
"One thing, Lucius."
Lucius looked at his friend, his face a blank even while his emotions rolled like a wind whipped sea. "Yes?"
"No magic. It's one of the reasons she is here," Calvin said softly.
"I had guessed," Lucius said, but hearing it audibly confirmed was still a sucker punch. He depressed the door handle and pushed inward, his eyes transfixed by his wife, his lovely wife, pale and eyes closed, tubes running from her arms, Muggle devices beeping, lights scrolling across screens. His vision grew cloudy as he walked to her, drew the chair alongside, gently took her hand, stroking what skin he could reach around the lines.
"I'm here, love. I'm here."
"What do you mean, he checked himself out?" Draco said loudly, dismissing the quill hovering behind him over a parchment clipboard. "One thing I ask you to do, Josephus, ONE thing, and you even bollux that up!"
"Sorry sir," the trainee Healer stammered, but Draco ignored him.
"Fuck, he's gone to Paddington," Draco said more to himself than to the trainee. "I'll be back later."
The trainee healer watched him stalk off in a swirl of lime colored robes and swallowed. That had gone well.
Calvin watched his friend from the relative sanctuary of the window, trying to give him as much privacy as possible while still keeping an eye on him. It was one of the reasons he had resolved to be there when Lucius woke if Draco was not—he knew that his friend would not sit still, content with secondhand tidings of his wife.
Lucius wanted nothing more than to see Hermione's eyes open, so he kept talking to her, soothing and low as he recounted waking up, missing her, needing her. He had tuned out all of the Muggle noises, focused only on his wife and her recovery. She was still here, and her stubbornness would not let her quit. He simply had to be patient and wait for her to come back.
"Mr. Malfoy?"
Lucius turned his head to see a Muggle healer in a white coat, reluctantly set Hermione's hand down and briefly shook the Muggle's hand as the doctor introduced himself.
"I'm Dr. Thompson, and I'm supervising your wife's care along with your referring hospital. It's been quite the team effort, but I believe she is out of danger now, and we just have to be patient and wait for her to wake up from her coma."
Doctors, that is what they called healers, Lucius remembered. "Thank you. I was in the hospital myself, or I would have been here sooner," he explained slowly, picking up Hermione's hand again.
"Yes, so your physician informed us." He paused and looked at Lucius. "Are you sure you're supposed to be out of the hospital already? You look a bit shaky."
"Yes, it's just superficial twinges now," Lucius lied, ignoring Calvin's snort from the window which drew the doctor's attention. "My brother," Lucius added by way of explanation, which caused the doctor to return his attention to Lucius.
"Now, I think it will probably be another 24 hours or so, given that we have to withdraw her sedation slowly, and we want to monitor the baby to be sure there isn't a resumption of contractions, or risk of further damage to the placenta…"
Lucius gripped the doctor's arm, didn't care if a look of alarm flashed briefly in the healer's face. "The baby is alive? She didn't miscarry?"
"No, Mr. Malfoy," Dr. Thompson said gently, placing his hand over Lucius'. "The baby is fine—see there, the second line? That is her heartbeat."
Lucius' eyes overflowed with tears, tears of gratitude, tears of joy, but he held them back forcibly after the first few fell. "Her heartbeat…oh my love, we're going to have a beautiful daughter," Lucius said quietly to Hermione, placing his hand on her rounded belly and kissing his wife on her temple, stroking back her hair. He had just assumed that her body would take time to catch up to its emptiness, her roundness an unhappy reminder of what they had both lost. "Please come back to me. We have yet to choose a name, pet, and I'm afraid you will hate me if I pick Pleiades or something equally twee."
"Mr. Malfoy?" The Muggle healer interrupted his thoughts and Lucius was annoyed, but restrained himself from hexing the man. Oblivious to the danger and satisfied that he once again had the spouse's attention, he continued, "There will be some complications with labor which we will need to discuss when your wife is conscious. Also, we have concerns about keeping the baby in utero for a few more weeks at a minimum to give the baby's lungs time to mature, so we need to discuss some steroid shots as well. For the moment, however, the baby seems to be staying put and we just want to get Mrs. Malfoy back to full consciousness and assess from that point forward. Does that make sense?"
Lucius shook his head impatiently. "It doesn't matter if I understand it or not. I simply want my wife and child to be healthy."
"May I?" Dr. Thompson said, indicating Hermione's bump. After Lucius withdrew his left hand and nodded, the doctor palpated Hermione's abdomen gently, feeling for the baby's position. "Her head is just here," he indicated beneath Hermione's right ribs, "and her feet are down here," he said, feeling the pokes from an active pair of feet. "Breech, but there is time for her to turn. I suspect that is all moot however, but as I said, we can wait until your wife is awake to discuss delivery options. You are welcome to stay until visiting hours have concluded, Mr. Malfoy. And, get yourself something to eat. That's an order."
With a smile and a wave to Calvin, the doctor left the room, leaving Lucius thinking that it would be a cold day in hell before he took medical advice from a Muggle healer. He looked at Calvin across the small room and asked, "Obviously a Muggle is not going to be able to explain the magic proscription. Why has that order been issued?"
Calvin opened his mouth to reply, but Draco saved him the hassle of a reply by walking into the room.
"About time you got here," Calvin said before Lucius could say anything.
"What are you doing out of St. Mungo's?" Draco scowled to his father, his hand itching to use his wand and check him over. "You're still healing, for fuck's sake. You shouldn't be here!" At this Draco darted a fierce look at Yaxley, who was blatantly unapologetic.
"What, I was to just let him go alone? At least this way I've been able to keep an eye on them both."
Lucius, however, rounded on his son.
"Whatever made you think that I would sit idly by while Hermione was injured, not knowing how badly? Of course I would come to her! I love her!"
Lucius' cheeks flushed an unhealthy red, and Draco swiped his hand across his eyes. Draco looked tired, but Lucius looked like death warmed over. Draco was concerned about the muscle damage to Lucius' back—there were still some treatments to go, and he'd probably just undone the work of one healing session with his jaunt over here.
"I know you do. I'm sorry I wasn't there, I had to see about Cornelia Dextrose. I don't know what curse Hermione hit her with, but we're still trying to reverse it."
"Just let the bitch die," Lucius said harshly, and Calvin tut-tutted.
"Afraid we need her to pin down the missing mole," Calvin said, and Lucius waved a hand, dismissing the topic as his gaze switched back to his son.
"Explain what happened to her."
Draco ran his fingers through his hair. "She used that torc to get us all out of there, apparated all three of us from Norway directly to St. Mungo's A&E ward. Needless to say, such a feat drained her significantly, even with the help of that necklace. By the way, why didn't you tell me about that? I've never seen it before."
"It is meant only for the direst of circumstances, to protect the last of the line if necessary," Lucius said grimly. "Given the circumstances I felt Hermione might need it."
"Well it was clearly only designed for mother and child. To say she stretched it too far to take both of us along with her is more than an understatement. She wasn't actually breathing when we arrived at Mungo's, and once we got that fixed we had to deal with the damage to her uterus and placenta, while the baby was still suffering from the aftereffects…" Draco stopped when he saw his father's hand clenching the bedsheet so hard that his knuckles were bone white. "In short, it was a lot of magic, too much, too fast, too soon. We brought her here to give her system time to recharge and re-equilibrate. With time, she should be fine."
"Should. And what about my daughter?" Lucius asked, forcing his hand to relax, release the bedclothes and stroke Hermione's cheek again. He didn't need to look at Draco to see the uncertainty, the slight indrawn breath enough to say it before his words confirmed it.
"We just don't know. We'll have to wait and see. No one has ever seen this type of variant on the Cruciatus before."
"Tell me they killed him." Lucius' voice was cold, measured, even as a part of him wished for the honor of crucifying his bastard cousin himself, plying his wand in a way he had never craved to do under the Dark Lord, who would doubtless have delighted in the bleak viciousness of such feelings.
Draco debated, then opted for the straight shot. "He got away."
Lucius' fist crashed onto the table next to Hermione's bed, the noise jarring amid the beeps and quiet electronic hum of the room. He regained control of himself quickly, the flare of his nostrils the only indication of the furious anger boiling beneath the surface.
"We have Dolohov, Lucius," Calvin said. "He's proving recalcitrant to talk. I was hoping you could…assist. Behind the scenes, of course."
"When Hermione is well," Lucius said slowly, returning his attention to his wife. "How long, Draco? And what can I do to help her recover?"
"Well, I think she should be gradually exposed to magic again, coax her own back from its slumber, if you will. Smethwyck is undecided, and Strout thinks she should remain isolated from magic."
Lucius interrupted him, peeved. "Miriam Strout couldn't tell the difference between Devil's Snare and Flitterbloom. I don't want her caring for my wife!"
"I told him you'd say that," Calvin piped up unhelpfully, his arms crossed across his chest.
"Shut up," Lucius and Draco simultaneously growled at him, and Calvin raised a brow.
"I'll just leave you two to carry on your little domestic then, shall I? I'll be right outside the door." Calvin let himself out, aware that father and son dynamics could be curious things.
"Look, please don't get worked up. We can talk about all of this at home, figure out the best approach. Right now, however, I need to check her and the baby, and then I'm going to check you. You've probably undone a day's worth of work by coming over here," Draco pled, watching his father crawl back from his instinctive defensiveness. Lucius didn't say anything, simply turned his head back to Hermione, picking up her hand while Draco drew his wand and cast carefully, a faint shimmer tinted with pale, pastel colors coalescing. He turned his wand toward the baby, and Lucius watched an even paler shimmer rise.
"That's good, better than yesterday," Draco said, ending the spell. "They are recovering, I think."
"Both?" Lucius asked quietly, placing his left hand on the baby, pushing slightly where the Muggle had said his daughter's feet were resting. He felt a nudge back, a reassurance that this girl was a fighter, "...just like her mother," Lucius murmured.
"Merlin help us," Draco remarked. "So you know it's a girl."
"Yes, that idiotic Muggle assumed I already knew." It was the kind of thing that would have pissed him off five years ago, but under the circumstances Lucius found it no more than a meddling irritation. "He said something about delivery, her placenta, and trying to keep the baby in for a few weeks more. What did he mean, and is that really the path that is necessary under the circumstances? All of this?" Lucius waved his hand toward the Muggle paraphernalia. "I can't imagine their pain relief is better than our potions."
"Probably not, but we decided to be cautious; and given how close they both came to dying—it seemed prudent. We repaired as much as we could with Hermione's uterus, the placenta was trickier, but the midwife, Astrid Løngren, gave us some help there. I recommend you speak to her about the delivery. We will have to see how she continues to improve, and whether your daughter is truly anxious to make an early appearance or not." Draco stopped, then confessed, "I am not sure what to make of having a half-sister on the way. There hasn't been a Malfoy female in generations. I don't know what Scorpius will make of her."
Lucius pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes. I need to talk to him, explain what it will be like with a new baby. I imagine he will be a bit jealous."
"Doubtless he will. Now, if you don't mind, I want to take a look at your back, and also give you some of your potions."
"I'm not leaving her," Lucius said, the softness of his voice belying the steel underlying it.
"I'm just asking you to step out so I can look at you without using more magic around them," Draco said. "We can use an empty hospital room, and I'll go to Mungo's and bring the potions back here. Okay?"
"Fine." Lucius stood carefully, irritated that he was so weak. "I hope your cadre of potions will include some PepperUp."
Draco helped his father down the hall, Yaxley wordlessly slipping into the room to stand guard with a nod to Lucius. "Auror," Lucius muttered under his breath as they passed a towheaded man in scrubs and white coat.
"How do you know that?" Draco asked, truly bemused.
"Posture," Lucius said stiffly as Draco checked a patient room and ushered Lucius in, locking the door with a pass of his wand. At least Kingsley wasn't neglecting precautionary measures for his wife.
"Now, shirt off. I want to see that back." Draco sighed in frustration when he removed the bandages and saw the blood. "You'll never heal if you keep tearing the muscles as they are healing! What were you thinking…never mind, I know. Okay, let me see what I can do to staunch the bleeding. For Salazar's sake, how did you walk here like this?"
Lucius remained silent, his lips thinning as Draco at least mended the broken muscle fibers, got the bleeding to stop, then applied fresh bandages. "You need more muscle layers to be rebuilt, but that is going to require simultaneous potions and wandwork, we can't have the new muscle tissue growing uncontrollably. I'll have to have you in Mungo's for that, as it will require at least two of us."
"Figure out a way to do it here," Lucius bit out.
"Fine," Draco said, throwing up his hands and eyeing his father with frustration as Lucius turned around and met his eye. He melted, though, when his father held out his shirt and said, "Help me?" His father looked drawn, drained even worse than he had been in the last few days before the end of the war. It was sad and frightening to see him, so frail and exhausted.
"You're a fucking piece of work, you are," Draco said to cover his feelings, but he helped his father into his shirt, doing the top two buttons while Lucius slowly did up the bottom ones. Then he helped him into his coat while Lucius gingerly tucked the shirt in, straightened the lapels so Lucius could button it. "There, better? You still look like shite, I have to tell you."
Lucius smiled at the sardonic tone of his son, and before Draco could worm away he pulled him into a tight embrace, his back be damned. "I'm proud of you, Draco," he whispered in his son's ear, heard Draco swallow hard.
"Yeah, well, I'm proud of you too." Draco pulled back after a brief, awkwardly reassuring moment, and avoided looking at his dad while he cleared his throat. "Right. I'll go fetch the potions you need while you talk to Calvin about staying here without the Muggles noticing. I'll be back shortly."
Lucius knew he didn't have to say anything else. Draco helped him back down the hall, made sure that Yaxley was going to stay there until he got back.
"I've got him," Calvin assured him when Draco looked at him, Lucius returning straight to Hermione's side.
"Thanks."