Future Potter-Prince's
Chapter 2: Check-ups and Family
Harry woke groggily, with a sharp pain in his stomach. He was confused for a moment as to why there was a small body in his arms, a larger body next to him, and childish laughing at the end of the bed, but then he opened his eyes properly, looked at the children in the room, and the man next to him and the memories of the morning returned leaving him almost awestruck, and yet worried when he looked at the little girl who was still fast asleep in his arms despite the laughter.
Severus woke up also, looking somewhat confused as to how his arm was over Harry's waist instead of around Phoenix like it was when he went to sleep, but as he sat up and looked at the giggling kids at the end of the bed all he did was raise his eyebrow at them. Though his expression turned to concern when he too saw that Remi was still asleep in Harry's arms despite the noise the others were making.
Harry sat up, carefully, but despite the movement Remi still didn't wake. He ran his fingers through her soft hair, more concerned than he liked to admit. His heart almost hurt. He knew that young children slept a fair bit, but he didn't know what was normal and what wasn't. He had never been around young children before. At least, not enough to know what was considered normal and what wasn't.
He looked at the other three and despite the laughter in their faces, there was also some concern in their eyes as they looked at their sister.
That just worried him all the more. Clearly something wasn't right.
"Would you three like to tell us what has you so concerned about Remi?" Harry said.
The three looked at each other, almost guiltily, but also as if they were trying to figure out whether to hide something from them or not.
"We will find out when I do some scans on you all anyway, but why don't you tell us what you know?" Severus said, "Is she ill?"
"She's ill a lot," Aurora said, before looking at her knees guiltily.
That twisted Harry's heart and he couldn't help but gently tighten his hold on the girl in his arms.
His daughter was ill a lot.
"Do you know why?" Severus asked, his voice almost faltering.
"She…" Phoenix said, "She was born early,"
His heart twisted again in fear.
"How early?" Harry asked, almost not wanting to know the answer.
"Eleven weeks,"
The pain in Harry's heart was immense. For her to be born that early something drastic must have happened. Bearer pregnancies were more delicate, yes, but only during the first twenty eight weeks, then the magics were stable and it was just a waiting game for the baby to be born. The baby still had to finish developing physically. For her to be born at twenty nine weeks, after the pregnancy had stabilised properly, something had to have happened.
Especially since if you are a more powerful wizard, like Harry knew he was, then the pregnancies tended to be more stable to begin with.
"Do you know why?" Severus asked, and Harry could hear the tremble of worry that he tried to hide.
The kids shook their heads, "You wouldn't tell us," Phoenix said, and Harry could imagine that of course he wouldn't tell his kids if something bad had happened. Especially when they were that young.
"Okay," Severus said, nodding as he stood up, "You three lay down so that I can scan you all,"
Harry and Severus shared a worried look as the kids shuffled down towards the head of the bed and laid next to Harry nervously. Severus waved his wand over all of them and Harry watched in awe as parchments popped out of nowhere and little quills started listing things on them.
Severus looked through them and Harry watched him nervously for any signs that they might not be okay. But he couldn't see anything, thankfully, hopefully.
"You are all perfectly healthy. If you could all go into the living room and call an elf to make you some breakfast whilst I look over your sister that would be great,"
"Okay, daddy," the children said happily and they bounded out of the room with large smiles on their faces.
"They're okay?" Harry asked, he just needed to make sure.
"Yes, they're fine,"
Harry breathed a sigh of relief before looking down at the still sleeping toddler in his arms.
"She was born early," he whispered as he held her close, not wanting to let her go, Severus sat next to them on the bed.
Remi let out a little whimper and clung to Harry's top tighter. Harry rubbed her back gently and kissed the top of her head, "It's okay baby, I'm here. I've got you,"
"Mummy?" she asked, her voice quivering slightly.
"Yeah, baby, it's me," his heart was clenching almost painfully in his chest, "You feeling okay?"
"Mhm," she murmured into his chest.
"Sweetie, we need to run a scan on you, can you lay down next to mummy for us for a minute, then he can hold you again if you want," Severus said gently.
"'Kay," she sluggishly said and she slid off Harry's lap, laying close next to him and blinking up at Severus with love filled green eyes.
"Good girl," Severus said, smiling down at her. He waved his wand over her small form and Harry watched with trepidation as the quill started listing things.
"That's all done, little one. Do you want to go back to your mummy?" Severus said, and Harry had never seen a child move so fast with how quickly she was back in his arms.
Harry held her almost like she was a baby, her head in the crook of his arm as he ran his fingers through her silky hair. He looked at Severus and the worry he felt tripled as he saw the concern and anger in his eyes as he read the parchment.
He grew more concerned when Severus took out his wand and cast a silencing bubble of some kind around Remi so she couldn't hear them speak but they could hear her.
"What's wrong? Why was she born early? Is she…" Harry didn't know what to say, didn't know how he could say the things he feared.
"When you were pregnant with her you were tortured for a few days before going into labour with her. The torture also affected her, as well as the fact that she was born early. Her magic is somewhat unstable, though it shows that it has been slowly stabilising since her birth, it will get better with time, nutrients and such. She… her nerves are slightly damaged and she suffers from the occasional tremors. But they should be able to heal over time, with the aid of potions, and such which our future selves have already started giving her. She was ill most of her first year, and still gets ill a lot. Her immune system isn't what it should be, even after being breastfed and all the potions she has been given, but again, given time it should get better. What is confusing me is that it says that… it says she was stillborn, and was… for about a minute after birth before a huge magical spike occurred and she started breathing,"
Harry couldn't stop the tears that were flowing down his cheeks.
Remi died.
His daughter died.
He didn't care that he had only known her for a few hours or so. She was his daughter and she had died. Been born dead. He couldn't, and yet could, imagine the pain that their future selves would have felt during that minute. And the time after also. He couldn't imagine life without her in it, despite only just knowing her, and yet for a full minute his future self had to.
Because he was tortured.
He desperately wanted to find whoever did this to his family so he could get some revenge.
Who would torture him? Especially whilst he was pregnant.
He had to assume that what Severus said when the kids arrived was the truth and they didn't start their family until after the war had ended, he couldn't bring children into this world. Not now.
So with Voldemort and the Death Eaters out of the way, who would want to torture him? And why? Especially when he was pregnant.
Who would want to kill his baby?
To cause him that much pain?
His first thought would be the Dursleys. Male pregnancy would definitely be deemed as unnatural to them. They would do anything to hurt him, kill his child. But based on the nerve damage he would have to guess that the cruciatus was used.
He held Remi close as an almost sob tore from his throat, he couldn't stop it. He was shocked when Severus' arms wrapped around him and Remi, but it was a pleasant shock. Something felt… right there.
"It's okay. We will figure out who did this and stop it from happening again," Severus whispered, though Harry could hear the pain in his voice, even over the determination and fierce protection.
Harry nodded, though he would like to know how they were going to figure it out since the kids didn't know and it was rather difficult to see into the future for both himself and Severus.
"We'll protect them, and you. All of you," Severus said, but Harry could hear the fear that he tried to hide. The same fear that Harry felt.
"I can't lose her, any of them… not even for a minute," Harry whispered.
"I know. And we won't. I promise. We will make sure it doesn't happen again,"
"But we don't know what happened. We don't know who did it,"
"We don't need to know. We can work to make sure that no one would dare to do something like that to us. We will do whatever we can to fix this. I'm not going to let anyone take you away from me long enough to do this to you, to our children," Severus said, and Harry felt safe in the protectiveness of his voice and hold.
He hadn't ever felt safe before, not truly. There was always some danger lurking around the corner. But Severus had saved his life more times than anyone else, and the way he held him now, the way he talked, and tried to reassure him… he felt safe.
It was weird.
Feeling safe was weird.
But he felt like he could get used to it.
He would get used to it.
"No one is going to hurt you ever again. If they try, if they even think about it, I will curse them to the ends of the Earth," Severus said.
His heart couldn't help but flutter at the words. He had never felt this… right before. This content. Almost everything he had ever known had always had some hint of wrongness that he couldn't explain. But this… being in these arms, with their future daughter in his arms, and their other children in the next room… this was right.
"Mummy, daddy, I'm hungry," Remi said quietly from her place snuggled between them.
"Then let's get you some food, little one," Severus said, after taking down the silencing barrier, smiling at her and placing a kiss on her forehead.
"Yeah, we need to make sure your brothers and sister are okay," Harry said, drying his eyes with the back of a hand before being helped off the bed by Severus, Remi still in his arms.
They walk into the living room to find the kids sitting at the table, laughing amongst themselves as they ate their breakfast with Dobby sitting at the table and telling them a story.
"Master Harry, I wills be getting some more food for yous," Dobby said brightly before popping away.
Harry sat at the table next to Leo and Severus sat next to Aurora. Phoenix was sitting at the head of the table and munching away happily on some toast.
"Mummy, you okay?" Leo said, the concern in his eyes as he looked at Harry making Harry's heart beam.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Leo. You okay?"
"Yeah!" he said, nodding enthusiastically as he dug back into his eggs.
Dobby popped back in with more plates, glasses (a bottle for Remi) and cutlery for Harry, Severus and Remi, and some extra platters of food for them to take from.
"Thank you, Dobby. You may join us again if you would like to," Harry said.
"Thanks you,"
Dobby sat in the empty chair and they had an enjoyable meal together. Harry could see that Dobby had questions about where the children came from, but he seemed content to wait for answers. He knew the children were his and Severus', and that was enough for now. And Harry knew the over protective elf would be just as protective of the children as he was to Harry.
Then there was a knock on the door and everything seemed to come to a stop. Harry looked at Severus, who looked at him, concern in both of their eyes after the spectacle in the Great Hall.
"It should be okay. I added wards this morning so that anyone with ill intent wouldn't be able to come near my quarters," Severus said, though Harry thought that it was mostly to reassure himself.
Severus stood and walked over to the door, almost painfully slow, Harry could tell that he didn't want to bring anyone else in just yet, and Harry honestly didn't want to either. He wanted to cherish this time, despite everything else going on outside the walls of the room.
"Hello professor," George's familiar voice proclaimed as Severus opened the door.
"Fancy seeing you again," Fred's voice chimed in as Severus let the pair through, closing the door as soon as they had stepped far enough away and making sure that the wards were still intact.
"Uncle Fred! Uncle George!" the children exclaimed and ran over to the pair, even Remi, and the twins stood in shock as the kids wrapped their arms around the two. Though the shock only lasted a matter of seconds before they both beamed and knelt to the floor to wrap the kids in their own arms.
Harry couldn't help but smile at the scene before him. He was happy that at least some of his friends were okay with the situation.
"So, what are you two doing here? I believe you left last year," Harry said, smiling at his friends.
The two of them grinned even as they continued to hold the kids.
"Well, Harrykins, we heard from a certain old birdie that four children arrived in the Great Hall this morning who claimed to be the children of our favourite brother, and our favourite potion's master. And we just had to come and say hello to these amazing children," Fred said, a cheeky grin on his face as he and George leaned back from the group hug and looked at all the children in awe.
"And it is just how we thought, they are the most adorable children in the world," George grinned, winking cheekily at Harry.
"Who knew you could make such gorgeous children, Harry?" Fred said, almost cackling in glee.
"If we had known we would have snapped you up long ago," George said, his grin almost splitting his face in two as Harry blushed.
"But alas, you are destined to be with our favourite master of potions," Fred sounded so wounded that Harry almost thought he wasn't acting.
"Oh, the pain," George said, hand on his heart and tears in his glinting eyes.
"However will we survive the pain," Fred said, hand on his heart, and he fell to the floor, choking out, the children laughing at him and climbing on top of him to tickle him.
"Oh, are we having a tickle war now?" George said, joining in and tickling Phoenix who squealed in delight as he rolled on the floor next to Fred.
The war only lasted a couple of minutes, but there was soon a pile of out of breath children, and children who pretended to be adults, lying on the floor, entwined with each other.
Harry shook his head at them and walked over, looking at Severus to find a smile in his eyes as he looked at the pile on the floor, "Are you finished?" Harry said as he stood over them.
"I believe so," George said, as he and Fred jumped up and helped the kids to stand too.
"And to think that you two are supposed to be adults," Harry muttered, causing the two to look at him with pained expressions.
"You wound us, Harry," Fred said.
"You wound us," George said.
"We will never be boring adults," Fred cried.
"Never!" George cried.
"But you are boring adults," Leo said, a cheeky grin on his face as they stared at him in shock and awe.
"And what is your name, young man?" Fred said, imitating a 'boring adult'.
"Leo," he said cheerfully.
"Harry, Professor, we think Leo should be grounded for such callous words," George said, almost completely seriously.
"Well we, Messrs Weasley, happen to disagree. There was no callousness in the words," Severus said, coming to stand beside Harry and placing his hands on Leo's shoulders in a comforting grip.
"George, I think we need to find a new favourite master of potions,"
"I think so, too, Fred,"
"But daddy is the best," Remi said, hands on hips as she stared up at the twins who looked down at her with pained looks.
The twins looked at each other then sighed dramatically.
"You are right, of course. He is the best," George said, plopping down on a sofa with his arms crossed.
"But we aren't very happy with you at the moment, Professor," Fred said, plopping down next to his brother with the same expression.
The kids laugh and clamber onto the sofa with the twins, clearly done with the food. Harry smiled and sat back in his chair at the table to finish eating, Dobby was still there also, watching the happenings with amusement. Severus also sat back at the table to finish eating.
The rest of the day passed with the twins entertaining the kids, with Harry and Severus joining in once they had finished eating. Overall Harry thought it was a good day, despite the ever lingering pain from the revelations of earlier, which was a shock to him. He wasn't used to having good days.
He thought that maybe he could get used to them, though.
Hiya my lovelies, I hope you are all well!
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, sorry it is a few days later than I wanted it to be but I ended up doing a load of overtime at work and well, that ate up a lot of my writing time. I also do need to warn you that the next chapter, when I upload it in a few weeks, will be a rather emotional one. So, if you are like me and cry at even the slightest emotional scenes I do recommend for you to have a box, or twenty, of tissues ready. Sorry, but well, it will be very emotional, very tough to write too. But we will get there.
I have a Facebook group called Maraudering_Paige which you can all join if you are able to and want to where we can talk about Harry Potter, fanfics, life, share memes and more. It is also where I have somewhat of an update schedule and will be keeping you up to date on what I am working on, both original and fanfics, and more. If you are interested then feel free to join, I am happy to accept each and every one of you.
I hope you are all having an amazing day!
Kind regards,
Paige xx