Saving the Future

Chapter 18: Bad Day

Hermione was having a bad day. She had had a number of bad days in her recovery so far, but she felt like none of them had been as bad as this one. Because on top of the terrible pain she also had tremors, and yet was incredibly stiff despite the shaking of her limbs.

She was thankful that Sirius was back in the living room and not witnessing this side of her, she didn't think she could handle it right now. Not on top of her mother's worry.

Her mother was laying beside her in the bed, holding her hand whispering comforting words to her as they waited for her father to get back with Poppy. And they soon arrived, bustling into the room as quietly as they could, although not quietly enough to not wake Sirius, unfortunately.

"What's happening?" Sirius asked tiredly from the living room, sounding worried, "Is Hermione okay?"

"She'll be fine, Sirius," her father tried to keep him out of the room, voice gentle and kind as he led Sirius back to his sofa-turned-bed.

"What's happening?" Sirius asked again, and Hermione could still hear the tremors of worry in his voice, and it caused her heart to both ache and flutter that he cared.

Though she was still thankful that he wasn't in the room with her, she couldn't bear it if he saw her like this.

Crying in pain as fine tremors raced through her limbs.

"She's just in a lot of pain today, Sirius. But she will be fine, I promise. And you will be, too. You both just need to rest, and recover," her father said soothingly.

"I want to see her," Sirius said indignantly, though he was clearly tired.

"I know, and you can. When you are both sufficiently rested," her father said gently.

"B-but," Sirius said.

"Sirius, you are exhausted, you are healing, you need to sleep. You will both be okay, I promise. Just please, sleep. You can see Hermione when you wake up,"

She realised that Poppy and her mother were talking, too, and tried to focus on their conversation, anything really. It all hurt too much at that point.

"Hermione, can you hear me?" Poppy said gently.

Hermione nodded, too exhausted to speak.

"Okay, good. That's good. We're going to try a healing bath, is that okay? I made some healing salts that should be good for damaged nerves with Severus' help. And I would like Minerva to join you in the bath, too if that is okay with you both? The salts won't harm the baby, I promise,"

Minerva and Hermione looked at the witch in shock.

"Why… Why would I need to join her? What good can I do?" Minerva asked nervously.

Poppy smiled at them both, "You may not be her biological mother, Minerva, but you are her mother. According to the scans I have just run, I had to make sure her magic was stable, her magic and yours have been binding together since the day you adopted her. Her magic sees you as her mother now. And your magic is helping her heal from this attack already with you just holding her hand and it might help more if you have some proper skin-to-skin contact with her. Obviously neither of you have to be completely nude, you may wear bikinis or something, but you being in there to hold her, and ground her with your magic, should help her recover from this attack a bit quicker. At least, it should help with the tremors, she may still be in pain afterwards, but I can give her potions to take the edge off,"

Minerva looked at Hermione with awe and love in her green eyes.

"I… I mean, if Hermione is comfortable with me in there with her then of course I will…" Minerva said gently, still looking at Hermione.

"Please," Hermione whispered with a nod.

Albus entered the room with a look of worry on his face as he hurried over to his wife and daughter.

"Right, I will go and run the bath for you then. I will be back shortly," Poppy said before moving to the en-suite to give them some privacy.

Her mother kissed her on the forehead and smoothed back some of her hair gently, eyes full of wonder and love.

"Is… Sirius?" Hermione said shakily.

"He's fine. Just exhausted, and worried about you. But you can see each other again when you are more rested," Albus said gently, running his fingers through her hair.

Soon Poppy came back into the room, "Albus, can you carry Hermione to the bath please and transfigure her pyjamas into a bikini so her and Minerva can have some skin-to-skin contact?"

"Of… Of course," he said in shock as he looked between his wife and daughter.

Minerva just smiled at him serenely as she stood from the bed, with a little difficulty and headed to the bathroom herself. Hermione felt Albus' arms go around her and soon she was being carried to the bathroom as if she weighed nothing, and as if her shaking wasn't making it difficult for him to do so.

Her mother was already in the bath, wearing a dark green bikini, and Hermione was soon snuggled up in her arms, not caring about how childish it looked as she leaned into her mother. She was in pain, she needed it. And she liked feeling her baby brother move against her also, it was comforting.

Albus moved to leave with Poppy, who stayed to make sure Hermione was okay, but Hermione grabbed his hand and he stopped, looking at her questioningly.

"Dad… stay," she breathed.

"Always," he said as he knelt besides the tub and kept his hand in her shaking one.

Hermione could feel being close to her mother's magic helping her. It was slow, yes, but it felt nice. It felt safe. It felt like love, and family, and hope. The bath itself was very relaxing, and seemed to be helping, too, even if it was slower than she would have liked, and the pain was ever lingering.

"Hermione," Minerva said gently and Hermione looked at her with tired eyes, "Your father and I have been talking, and we were wondering if you would be okay if we adopted Severus, too,"

Hermione's eyes widened in shock.

"We haven't spoken to him yet, I think he has been avoiding us, but… We need to get him away from his father. And we would love to adopt him, if he and you will be okay with that," Minerva said nervously.

"Of course I am okay with that," Hermione said, trying not to sound so shaky, "He is already my brother, why not make it official and give him the family he d-deserves?"

Minerva beams at Hermione before kissing her cheek gently.

"I can't believe you accepted me as your mother so quickly, Hermione. I am so very grateful for you coming into our lives, and I love you so much, more than every star in the sky. And to know that your magic accepts me so, too, something so pure and… You are amazing, you are a miracle," Minerva said, tears welling in her eyes as she looked at Hermione, who was also crying, although not just from the pain now.

"Our miracle," Albus said, looking between his wife and daughter with twinkling eyes.

"I… I love my original parents, don't get me wrong. They were good people. But… They were always working, they didn't have time for me, they didn't understand me. They didn't even really try. But you make time for me. Both of you. You look after me. You understand me. You accepted me, and believe in me, and… You are my parents, in every way that I wished my parents would have been. You would have raised me, you know, instead of leaving me with others most of the time. I only really saw them at breakfast and dinner, though that wasn't every day, and maybe a few hours between dinner and bedtime, and the holidays we would go on. Although, sometimes they tried to leave me with people when we were on holiday, too. I accepted you so quickly, because you did with me. And I love you both so much. And I am so very grateful for you both, and this opportunity to fix things. I have a family now, a true one," her voice was warbling the whole time but she didn't care.

She was in too much pain to care.

And she needed to let it out. She needed to let them know how grateful she was. She needed to let them know she loved them.

"They didn't truly want me. They had me because… because it was convenient, I guess. Because the family kept pressuring them into having a child. So they did. But they didn't want it. They just wanted to work and travel, together. Alone. But you… you want me. And you show me that every day. And I can't thank you enough for everything you have both… both done for me. For giving me a proper family. I love them, because they were my parents and I feel like I have to. But I love you because you are my parents, in all the ways that truly matter. Thank you,"

She felt a little nudge from the ball of magic and life in her mother's belly and chuckled as she nestled more into her mother's arms, letting the magic slowly calm her shaking nerves.

"We may not be your birth parents, Hermione, but you are our baby girl. And you always will be. We may have missed out on your early childhood, but we are so happy to experience the rest of our lives with you. To get to walk you down the aisle at yours and Sirius' wedding, whenever that may be. To get to hold your hand, and comfort you, and love you when you have your own children. To get to watch you grow into the amazing woman we know you will be," Albus said, "You have made us brave, in a whole new way. And you are one of the greatest gifts that either of us could have ever received. I am honoured to be your dad. And I thank you for giving us this opportunity, to fix things, and to look after you, to love you,"

It was almost silent after that, just the occasional sniffle from Hermione and her mother, or a chuckle when the baby would kick and squirm and they could feel or see it.

Hermione could feel her tremors slowing, and even her pain was easing a little as her mother's magic, and to a smaller extent her father's, washed over her and helped her body to recuperate for the time being.

And somehow she fell asleep, despite the pain, in the relaxing depths of the water, wrapped securely, lovingly, in her mother's arms.

…

When she woke she was still in pain, but it had eased a little from where she was at the beginning of the day. At least she wasn't shaking anymore.

And she found Severus sitting on her bed, looking at her nervously. She blinked at him and sat up, slowly, holding his hand gently to calm his nerves.

"Your parents want to adopt me," he whispered, almost as if he were in awe of the thought.

And perhaps he was.

"Indeed, they do," she said back, smiling at him.

"Are you… Are you okay with that?" he asked hopefully.

"Why wouldn't I be okay with that, Sev?" he shrugged his shoulders, "Sev, you are my brother already. I know we haven't known each other long, and that everything's been a bit crazy, fast, and well, everything. But you are already family, why not make it official and keep you safe whilst we're at it? We care about you, Severus. We love you. And you deserve a family,"

It hurt to see the tears and fear in his eyes. But she understood.

She pulled him gently into her arms and he melted into her, "We want to be your family, Severus. I promise. And we can be a good one, too. Mum, dad, you, me, our little brother, maybe some other siblings too down the line. Just… give us a chance, Sev. You deserve a chance at a family, a safe place. We all love you already,"

"I… I'll think about it," Severus whispered into her shoulder, though she thought he sounded rather hopeful.

"See that you do," she said, smiling slightly, "Welcome to the family, little brother,"

"Little brother? Aren't I older than you?" he pulled back and stared at her incredulously.

"On a technicality maybe. But I was born in September, and you were born in January, so… I am older if you don't take into account that I was technically born in nineteen seventy-nine," she grinned at him.

He chuckled and shook his head.

"Thank you, Hermione," he whispered, and though she could tell that he wanted to say so much more, she didn't need him to. She understood and she smiled at him, squeezing his hand in support and comfort.

Maybe this bad day wasn't so bad after all.

Hiya, how are you all today?

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, it only took me about twelve hours to write with all the crying I have done because I just... can't with life. But here we are. I have finally uploaded a chapter. It was only meant to be updated last week, but hey ho, I am too exhausted and mentally/emotionally drained at the moment to get more than two updates up a week, though I have posted a couple of one shots. And I am considering writing a completely honest essay/rant regarding my feelings for my favourite character, Severus Snape, bearing in mind that I hold a number of 'unpopular' opinions about him. But if you want to read my rant then let me know and I will be sure to write it up for you all. Also considering writing up a petition for me to be cast as him in the new HBO series despite the fact that I am a woman, because why not? I am him, he is me, and he deserves to be played by someone who loves, understands and respects him as a character as much as I do, as Alan did.

Anyhow, all jokes aside (although if you want to see my rants then please do let me know, on both accounts, because I will do them, probably), I have a Facebook group called Maraudering_Paige which you are all welcome to join if you would like to and are able to. It is 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 all up to date on what I am working on, both with fanfics, and original works. So if you are interested then feel free to join, I am happy to accept anyone into the group.

I hope you are all having a marvellous day!

Kind regards,

Paige xx