THC/The Houses Competition.

House - Slytherin

Class - Transfiguration

Prompt - [Setting] St Mungo's

Drabble

Word Count - 1000

"It's happening! It's happening! Oh Merlin, it's happening."

Ron paced across the waiting room at St Mungo's while both the Midwife and Hermione looked on. He'd been doing so for the past ten minutes whilst they were both otherwise engaged in sorting out the final details of how this was going to go.

Except, now free to wait until the time came with nothing else to distract her; it was especially grating on Hermione's nerves.

She finally snapped, "Ronald! Will you please get a grip. You caused this so you will damn well shut up, sit down, and hold my hand until I am done with you! You got that!?"

Ron gulped, sat down, and held out his hand. Now they just had to wait until they got a room.

The waiting room was a hubbub of noise even at 2 in the morning. Despite the chaos, it appeared that no Mediwizard was running about, only striding through the pandemonium with a single-sighted purpose to get to whomever they were trying to help.

Ron desperately hoped that the Midwife Hermione had been paired with had the same sense of determination to deliver the baby whole and healthy when the time came.

They both sat hand in hand for the next twenty minutes as room preparations were obviously being made.

People continued to flit in and out as time went on; a child with a broken arm, an elderly woman, somebody who's arm had turned into a wing.

One by one they were called and ushered into separate areas.

"Weasley-Granger!"

Ron got up, holding out an arm for Hermione. They followed a Medinurse slowly through the white sterile corridors of the hospital until they reached a smaller waiting room. Ron could tell by Hermione's small huff that her patience was faltering as they were told to "wait for 5 more minutes" and that they'd be "shown to their room momentarily".

They both sat in the same uncomfortable chairs that the hospital seemed to favour.

"We'll be in the room soon, then you won't have to move again until the baby's out"

He tried to be positive - it didn't look as if Hermione was feeling quite as happy as he'd hoped.

"I just want to get this child out of me Ronald. I feel fat, bloated, and it hurts. I wanted my room 20 minutes ago. Not another waiting room!"

Hermione's shrill shout drew the attention of the other people who were in the room, however a sharp glare from Hermione had them looking down.

Ron tried again, "Just another few minutes, love."

She gave him a terse nod, that was all he was probably going to get. He rubbed her hand, hoping to at least ease some of her tension.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, their Midwife miraculously appeared and guided them into a room.

It was clear when they walked in that there must have been hundreds of runes etched in there. It was muffled from outside noise, a calming aura emanating around them.

Hermione went straight to the bed with a one-track mind, dropping Ron's hand that she had been holding. Ron took it all in his stride, dropped their bags on the table, and sat beside her. He offered his hand up for her to (hopefully not) break.

The Midwife cast a spell at Hermione as she situated herself, a moment later multiple readings lit up on the wall which the Midwife looked at.

Ron watched as she nodded to herself.

"I mentioned to Hermione earlier my name's Julia, but don't worry about remembering, you have more important things to focus on. Everything is looking perfect, you're nearly fully dilated, I think that it will all be happening soon. You've said that you want to do this mainly naturally, which is perfectly fine, I'll use a small numbing charm to help, if you change your mind at any point, all options we spoke about earlier are at your disposal. You decide how you want this to go. If anything starts to look like it could become a problem, we'll sort it. The most important thing is that everything looks completely fine at the moment."

Hermione nodded at Julia.

All Ron acknowledged was that everything was okay.

And so the wait continued, both discussing little random things; clothes to buy, family reactions, names.

But now, it was time.

Hermione was pushing; Ron was trying not to faint.

Julia, the ever wonderful Midwife, was there coaching Hermione on when to push and when to breathe, when she exclaimed, "The head is crowning! A few long pushes, some deep breaths, and once the head is out it will nearly be over."

"Thank Merlin! I am never touching you again Ronald!" Hermione screamed.

A few more minutes of loud huffing and Julia's comments of when to push and breathe, the head was out.

Ron had glanced down to look and immediately regretted it; it was a sight that his eyes had never needed to view. The emotional scarring from that would potentially be worse than the spider event in second year.

Hermione gripped his hand even tighter now as she screamed into his ear.

Ron muttered calming platitudes that she didn't seem to hear and hoped that Julia knew a few spells to fix the bones in his hand.

Finally, a piercing cry was heard as Julia moved to hold up a wrinkly little baby that neither Hermione nor Ron could take their eyes off of.

"You've both got a beautiful baby girl! Congratulations!"

She spoke cheerfully as she wrapped up the baby in a little bundle to pass to Hermione.

Hermione cradled the tiny bundle to her chest as Ron moved his hand over to let his finger be gripped by a tiny hand.

"She's perfect." Ron whispered, tears in his eyes.

Hermione nodded, speechless.

Ron spoke in a whisper, "Hello Rosie. Welcome to your new family, everyone's going to spoil you rotten."

Hermione laughed.

It was perfect.