December 1980
St. Mungus Hospital
Florence had a busy day, working two floors, the sixth and seventh floors, the Minor Injuries and the Intensive Care wards, respectively, she barely had time to eat.
With the war getting worse day after day, there was a new patient hourly – some with weird conditions from multiple spells, others suffering the aftereffects of several Cruciatus.
"Three more incoming!" Healer-in-training Roy let everyone in the seventh floor corridor know as soon as he received the files from the first floor.
"Aurors or Eaters?" asked Florence.
"Aurors," Roy replied.
Then the team stood by the elevator to receive the patients.
After stabilizing the three aurors, Florence went down to the fifth floor to buy a cup of tea and a sandwich.
She sat down by the window to enjoy some quiet moment, glad that no patients had died under her care that day so far.
"Delacour!" she heard someone calling.
"Hi, Prof. Smethwyck. Do you need anything, sir?"
"Yes, dear," he stopped by her table, "Is everything running smoothly on the sixth and seventh floors?"
"Yes, sir. The last three patients who arrived this afternoon are all sleeping and will survive with no permanent damages."
"Good to know! Can you go up to the ninth floor for the rest of the day then?"
"The Maternity Ward? Of course, sir. I'll be up in a minute," she smiled, dealing with new mums and babies was a lot better than caring for injured aurors, civilians and death eaters.
Ninth Floor
Florence was performing her third visual exam of that afternoon, this time on a seven-month pregnant woman.
"Little Jenna is looking great, Mrs. Wilkins. Keep watching your sugar levels and, if I don't see you before she arrives, I wish you a short and painless labour."
"Thank you, Mediwitch Delacour. I hope to see you next month!"
"Take care!" Florence said, leaving the room and going to the ninth floor reception, "Who's my next patient, Sally?"
"Well, there is someone already inside room 97," replied the pink-haired, receptionist, "Mother and daughter are waiting to be seen. Her file is already in the room."
"Alright, I'll be going there now," and Florence walked to room 97, smiling; working with mums and babies always made her happy; the joy of seeing families preparing for a new baby was a unique experience.
It really gave her hope for a better future and helped her forget about the war and her own problems for a while.
She opened the door of room 97.
"Good afternoon, how's this mum today?" Florence's voice died, she froze in place as her eyes fell onto the last person she ever wanted to see in a maternity ward.
"You!" the patient exclaimed, "I didn't know you worked in the maternity ward, Delacour."
"Cassiopeia," Florence said, her hands quickly reaching for the woman's file; her veela standing up quietly in the back of her mind, fearing that her happy day was about to turn into a nightmare in the next few seconds.
"So you two know each other?" someone else asked.
Then Florence lifted her head and looked at the older woman in the room, realising it was probably Cassiopeia's mother.
"Oh- hi, I'm Healer-In-Training Florence Delacour."
"Oh, Florence," the woman said, pressing her lips together, "I've heard about you," the mother looked her up and down, clearly displeased to see her, "I'm Cassie's mother, Ursa Rosmerta."
Florence just smiled and put on her most professional face, "Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Rosmerta. Now..." she looked down at the clipboard in her hands, "I am reading here in your file, Miss Rosmerta," she forced herself to be polite, for she was not only at work but she was also a student there, and the last thing she needed was a complaint in her perfect file, "...that you haven't had your period within the expected time," Florence felt her heart nearly stopping as she read on: "And you'd like... confirmation that you're... pregnant," she finished speaking and had to remind herself to breathe, looking at her former classmate.
"Yes," Cassiopeia was smiling, "I took a pregnancy test at home," she took a small vial with a yellow liquid from inside her purse and gave it to Florence, who took the vial, trying to keep a straight face and not show how afflicted she was inside at the prospect that stupid Rosmerta could be carrying Severus' baby.
"Good," Florence managed to speak through the lump in her throat, "Yes. Well, will you please lie down on the bed... then I'll be performing a visual exam."
Rosmerta quickly jumped on the bed and waited.
Florence took a deep breath and cast the Vide utero spell above the woman's midsection, sighing in relief.
"Well, you're not pregnant, Miss Rosmerta. But there is certainly something going on with your ovaries that needs to be checked."
Florence finished the spell and picked up the clipboard again, adding some information about what she had just seen.
"I'll give you the name of the specialist and you can schedule an appointment-"
"I don't believe you!" Rosmerta screeched, getting down from the exam table and pointing at the vial on the desk, "That test says I'm pregnant!"
"Well, see," Florence was trying not to smile, "These pregnancy tests are very sensitive to light, if you stored it somewhere not properly shielded from light, it might give you some false results, both positive and negative. However, the visual spell I've just cast cannot give us a false result for it allows me to see inside your womb. And there's no baby in there."
"I wish to see another healer!" Rosmerta shouted, "I bet you're lying! You want me to lose my baby!"
Florence looked at Cassiopeia's mother and the woman seemed to be as angry as her daughter, although more restrained.
"I'll have someone else come talk to you two. Excuse me," and Florence opened the door and nearly ran out of the room, closing the door.
She took a deep breath and walked to the receptionist.
"The patient in room 97 isn't pregnant," Florence told Sally, "but has some health issues. Have someone talk to her, will you?" and she handed her the clipboard.
"Ooh, I bet she was angry!" said Sally, the hospital's biggest gossip girl.
"As a matter of fact, yes, she was furious," said Florence, still trying to shake off the thought that Rosmerta could be having Severus' child in the future.
"Well," continued the pink-haired receptionist, "I overheard her and her mother talking about how the baby-daddy was loaded and that he'd have to marry her now!"
Florence raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Wow. That's low."
"Yep. The girl said she's been trying to get pregnant for years, but it seems the guy always wears protection."
Florence frowned, finding that very strange, for condoms had never been a concern of Severus' when making love to her – but she was certainly relieved to learn that information.
"Do you know her?" Sally asked.
"Yes. We went to Hogwarts together."
"Wait!" Sally leaned forward, fishing for something juicy, "Do you know who is the guy they are trying to trap?"
"Yep," Florence smiled at Sally's eager face, "And I dated him," she added.
Sally nearly screamed, "No! What's wrong with this guy? Leave you for... well, that?"
"I broke up with him," she briefly explained, "I'll be going now."
"Nooo! I need more than that, Florence! C'mon! Tell me details!"
"Sorry, have to go," Florence quickly walked away from the reception desk, going to the locker room, chuckling at Sally's antics.
Then she rested her forehead against the metal door of her locker, her stomach churning, letting her know that soon she'd need to find a toilet.
So she quickly sent Eileen a Patronus message asking her to take the boys home at six.
Then she went home by Floo and that trip was the last straw. She reached her house and ran upstairs to her bathroom, where she fell onto her knees in front of the toilet and threw up the sandwich she had eaten that afternoon.
After a minute dry heaving, Florence stood up and walked into the shower stall, letting the hot water relax her body, trying to focus her mind on the fact that there was no baby, it had been just a false alarm.
"Flor?" asked Eileen, walking into the bathroom, "I've just arrived with the boys. Tiffany told me you aren't feeling well."
"Just nerves, godmother," she replied, reaching for the shampoo.
"Tough day at the hospital?"
"You could definitely say that," Florence stopped scrubbing her hair and touched her forehead to the cold tiles again, her stomach churning.
Eileen worried, there was only one thing that left her goddaughter that disturbed, "Has anything happened to Severus?"
"No," Florence sighed, "But I was working the Maternity Ward this afternoon and..."
Eileen gasped happily: "You're pregnant!"
"What? No!" Florence looked at her godmother, frowning at her; they both knew hiding a third kid from Severus would be impossible, "But Cassiopeia was inside a room with a positive pregnancy test."
Eileen's smile dropped, "What? No! You've got to be shitting me! No no no!"
"Didn't you say you wanted to be a grandma again?" said Florence, teasingly.
"Stop messing with me, Florence!" Eileen said with a glare.
"I'm not messing with you. She did have a positive pregnancy test, but it turned out to be a false-positive," Florence closed her eyes, trying to calm her stomach, which threatened to cramp up again as she recalled the moment she saw the yellow vial.
Eileen looked at her with empathy, "I can't begin to imagine how terrible that must've been for you, my dear."
Florence rinsed the conditioner from her hair and walked out of the shower, wrapping herself in a fluffy towel.
"It was awful," she replied, taking a deep breath.
"Mummy! Mum!" the boys shouted from the corridor, making Florence smile as she walked into her closet to get dressed before going to hug them.
"See how they make you happy?" said Eileen, trying to sound persuasive, "It wouldn't be bad to have another one... maybe a little princess this time."
"Stop it, godmother!" Florence shook her head, but secretly thought to herself that if she actually got pregnant again it wouldn't be that bad.
The next day
Hogwarts
Severus finished his last class of the day and had just arrived in his private quarters when there were knocks on his door. He went to open it, wondering what mission could Dumbledore have for him that evening.
"Mother?" he was surprised to see Eileen on the other side of his door.
"Why am I not surprised you chose your quarters in the dungeons, Severus?" She sighed, walking into his living room.
"It's comfortable," he said, defensively.
Eileen looked around and smiled, it wasn't as dreary as she had imagined.
"What brings you here, mum?"
"I came to check on you, and-"
"There is always an and..." he muttered.
"And I wanted to tell you about a very interesting thing that happened to Florence yesterday, at the Maternity Ward."
"She's pregnant!" he exclaimed hopefully, feeling his heart leap.
"No. And I have to admit that I thought the same thing. But no, she's not pregnant. She had a very interesting patient yesterday," Eileen continued: "Your little girlfriend, Cassiopeia. Apparently, she thought she was pregnant."
"Not possible," he didn't even flinch, "I always wear a condom with her."
"With her?" repeated Eileen, frowning, "Are you going around having unprotected sex with random women, Severus?"
He looked his mother in the eye, and said: "The only woman I have ever fucked without a condom is Florence. And I'll keep doing that until I get her pregnant and then I'll make her marry me."
Eileen seemed surprised at his words. Then she slowly nodded, "Well, that was... enlightening. I must say that I know more about your sex life than I'm comfortable with," she remembered Florence's comment about his breast obsession. Then she added: "I believe you should also know that Cassiopeia has been trying to trap you in marriage because of your money."
"I'm aware of that," he sighed, "But unless I get Florence pregnant, there is nothing I can do but try to move on with my life, mum."
Eileen didn't reply, her tongue itching to tell him the truth.
"Florence loves you," she said, instead.
"Yes," he sounded frustrated, "She loves me. She fucks my brains out. She saves my life. She begs me not to get myself killed. She even says she can't imagine living on if I die! But she won't marry me!"
Eileen could see his pain, as clear as she could see Florence's.
"Flor was terrified yesterday," said Eileen softly, "Can you imagine how that went? She had a vial in front of her saying that... that girl was pregnant with your child and she had to perform a visual exam to see the baby!"
He nodded, "Actually, I can imagine. Florence probably felt the same way I did the day I found out Sirius Black had put two babies in her," he sounded bitter, walking to his liquor cabinet and pouring himself a glass of firewhisky.
Eileen frowned, "Drinking, Severus?"
"Mother," he said, "I'm no longer underage. I have a job in this school. I've seen and done things you cannot imagine in your worst nightmares. I can't have the woman I love by my side, and I have a gold-digger for a girlfriend. If you don't want to watch me drink, leave!" he tilted his head back and drank all the firewhisky in his glass at one go.
Eileen found herself with two options: tell him the truth or leave.
So she left.