Chapter 41

Once Voldemort had died, the Death Eaters had run and the Romanian Ministry felt safe enough to intervene. Werewolves and death eaters and anarchists were caught and the Order suffered minimal casualties because of how early on Voldemort had died. There still were deaths. Moody had fought his last battle. When Draco had turned sides, Lucius had attempted to follow only to be cut down. Hagrid … sweet Hagrid wasn't made to fight, but fight he did only to end up falling too. That one hit Harry harder than anyone, and he insisted on transporting the body of his oldest friend back to Britain and paying for his funeral.

Hermione nearly went into labor that day just from the stress and had been put on bedrest as much as she could considering the trials and award ceremonies. She had been interrogated mercilessly by both the Romanian authorities and their own Wizengamot. The Romanians were wondering about Grindelwald and his death, how he'd gotten out, and whether she could get the wards back up for the prison. She couldn't. The Wizengamot were looking for any reason to send her back to the rock, only stopped when Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Neville had stood up for her and told them about the apparently epic battle where Hermione had protected all of them in turn from Voldemort until he'd finally been killed by Grindelwald. They were forced to give her an Order of Merlin, Second Class, right alongside her friends.

Severus had survived and earned his Order of Merlin First Class and exoneration in the public eye. Every Order member testified to his bravery, and Draco had even come forward to tell them about how much Severus had helped him avoid the mark (no one mentioned how it had been removed, instead opting for saying it had never been there in the first place). While many still looked at him with childhood distaste that came from taking classes from him, he was still viewed as a tragic hero.

Using the Quibbler to start the wave, they were able to get her photographed with her friends at the funerals for Dumbledore and the other Order members who fell, and mildly praising articles printed even in the Prophet. She hadn't cared for her own reputation, but she needed her children to be safe. The articles raised their public opinion of her and the threats to her all but stopped.


ONE MONTH LATER


"Tell me I can stop," Hermione pleaded when a particularly violent contraction hit her. "I just want to lie down!"

"A little bit more, dear," Mme Pomphrey encouraged her. "We just want to make this as nice and quick as possible for you and the little ones."

Harry was holding her up on one side, Malfoy on the other to walk her around and they both tried to encourage her forward. "Come one Granger, just a little bit more."

"Don't listen to him, 'Mione," Harry encouraged, "you take your time. Don't move until you're ready."

"Just shut up," Hermione grumbled at the both of them, but walking forward anyways. A snort came from her delivery station and she glared at the offender. "You too."

Severus looked amused. "Take a deep breath, Miss Granger, and laugh at the ridiculousness of the two boys you have working together. You'll feel as relaxed as I do."

She chuckled a bit, and Harry and Draco wrinkled their faces at each other as she did. Then she yelled and huffed through another contraction. "No laughing, laughing hurts!"

"We're here, we're here!" The Granger parents were rushing into the Hospital Wing, both flushed from clearly running up the warded path until they could reach her. Hermione blubbered as her mother came to stand by her. "Oh, sweetie, you should have called us earlier."

She blubbered. "I wasn't sure they were coming. I didn't want to bother you during the first week."

Both Granger parents had returned to their practice, welcomed back by all their staff and colleagues. Until her water had broken, she hadn't wanted to call them.

"Oh, you silly girl." Draco and Harry backed off then, letting the parents lead her around for a few minutes.

That next contraction was the longest by far, lasting over a full minute and nearly bringing her to her knees. Mme Pomphrey motioned for her boys to bring her over to lie on the delivery table to check the dilation. Both boys refused to look anywhere below her necks.

She barely had a minute of rest before the next contraction came and she cursed and tried so hard to not kick out at the stirrups. Draco and Harry had no idea what to do to comfort her, and she had soon banished them both to just outside the curtain where she could still see their silhouettes but not their stupid, nervous faces. Her father joined them, looking a little green, while her mother stayed as did Severus.

"Well done," Severus praised her when she came down from the latest contraction. "You haven't once begged for additional pain potions and haven't told us you're giving up or that you can't do this. You are doing very, very well. Now focus on breathing, relax in this time between the pain."

"Give me your hand," she ordered angrily. "I'll show you pain."

He gave her a fond smile but still relinquished his hand. "Even your threats have no venom. You're doing very, very well."

"He's right, sweetheart," her mother laughed. "You should have heard me giving birth. I cursed everyone like a sailor and threatened to strangle the nurses if they didn't somehow make the pain go away."

The next contraction prevented her reply and she roared and squeezed Severus' hand for everything he as worth.

"Oh!" Madame Pomphrey moved between her legs and she felt her "That was it! You're wide enough now. Next contraction and you start pushing, alright? I'll tell you to ease up when I see the head, but until I do just follow your instincts and move and push when you feel it."

It took her hours to get the first baby out. The act of pushing was a disemboweling, so painful that it felt like everything was about to come out of her as she died there. Madame Pomphrey told her she was doing well and it was going well, but it still took too long and she was crying and screaming and sweating for an hour before the first girl was born. Severus released her hand to go and collect the child for cleaning and diagnostics, only letting her see it for a minute before he next contraction began and he went to take care of her first born.

The next girl followed within ten minutes, three pushes later.

Just as she breathed a sigh of relief, Madame Pomphrey started patting the baby dry and muttering to herself. "Come on, now, little one, you can cry. It's alright, but we need you to breathe before we can cut the cord. Come on, breathe."

"She's not breathing?" Hermione panicked, voice hoarse from her previous screams. "Is she alright?"

"Just stay still," Madame Pomphrey encouraged her, "she'll be fine, it's fine."

Her mother tried to calm her, but it wasn't until her first baby was in her arms that she could even focus on anything but her panic. Her mother patted her and held her close, shielding her gaze best she could from what was happening between her legs. After over a minute and no cries being heard, Madame Pomphrey began to give her baby CPR with Professor Snape supporting and rubbing a potion on the baby's chest. Hermione was crying, helpless as her baby struggled to live.

Then the cry came. Her heart steadied and she wept in relief as Madame Pomphrey finally cut the cord to her second baby girl and brought her over Hermione to see. She was so bloody, barely made better from the medical work needed to get her to breathe, but just like her sister she was beautiful. She wanted to hold her, but she was taken away by Severus again to be cleaned. She buried her face gently into the minute fuzz on top of her first baby's head as Draco and Harry came through the curtains with her father.

Mr Granger smiled down at her and brushed a hand over her curls. "You did well, little bean. That little lady's gorgeous, and so is her sister I'm sure."

"So, is that my goddaughter?" Draco asked, earning an elbow from Harry. "What? It's rude to presume."

Hermione looked at her little blue-eyed, black-haired little girl. "Thea Evelyn Granger, these are your godparents. The unicorn is Draco –" "Hey!" "And the nervous one is Harry." "Hey!" "They're both a little loud, but they'll be great godparents to you and your sister."

"Speaking of," Severus came back into the birthing area with a second bundle of fabric. They had grabbed a different colour blanket to identify the second baby; Hermione really didn't want to misidentify them, but now that she had them both in her arms she didn't think she could. Each little girl was identical, but their magic was just a little different from each other. Her second twin was crying. "I believe this little one was missing her little family."

Hermione took her second child into her other arm and let them lean together against her chest, bleary little eyes barely opening and her little cries hushing as the baby's arm finally touched her twin. It was so adorable.

"You should try feeding them, dear," Madame Pomphrey told her, finally closing her legs and cleaning up the station. "They should search it out if you place them near your nipples."

In a rare moment of synchronicity, Draco and Harry both announced they would be going to tell their friends about her successful birth and ran from the hospital wing to the laughter of the adults. It took some fenagling, and several blushes in Severus' direction, but she finally had positioned both babies by her bare breasts and encouraged their rooting for her milk. She avoided Severus' dark eyes by talking to them while they ate.

"Hello Terra," Hermione whispered to the second little girl. "That's your name now; Terra Elowen Granger. This is your sister, Thea, but I already told her her name. Your father and I both picked your names, and I hope you like them my little ladies. These are your grandparents. And Draco and Harry are the ones who ran out just now, avoiding seeing me feed you. Poor boys. You'll meet the Weasleys soon too, and they'll love you to bits. Severus is the one who cleaned you both up and made sure you were okay. He's also important, okay? He's sometimes going to be feeding you, and changing you, and he's been very kind to offer so no being fussy for him, alright?"

Severus looked touched by her little dialogue with her children, and she would have teased him but her eyes were getting heavy. The adrenaline was dying and her discomfort was lessening more and more as she laid there. The warmth of the babies against her made up for the chills she was feeling from their delivery, calming her and making her bleary.

"I think I need to give you to your grandparents when you're done," Hermione murmured to her babies, looking up at her mum and dad who nodded. "You've tired me out, little ones. Mum needs a bit of a nap."

One at a time, Thea and Terra were handed over to her parents and she worriedly watched. Her babies should be there with her, but they at least needed to be put in their crib while she slept. She fretted her hands as they were taken away by her parents.

"They'll be in your arms again the moment you wake," Severus promised her, making to follow the Grangers. "I understand babies need regular refills."

Hermione laughed, earning herself a tender look from the older man. Her body warmed at just that, and she found herself exceptionally needy.

"Stay?"

Severus was glad to. He came and sat by her side, offering his hand when she asked for it. Worries fought to leave her heart as she lay there.

"You don't hate them, do you?" Hermione asked hoarsely, giving him an uncertain look. "For being his?"

Severus brought her hand to his face and gently placed a kiss upon it, holding it within his own. "I do not. They are beautiful and innocent and you love them. So much so that it is impossible to not look on them with fondness."

She bit her lip. "Will people love them like I do?"

"A mother's love, as we know, is often beyond compare," Severus reminded her gently. "Do not worry about the future. They have a retinue of loyal, powerful people to protect them and each will come to love them as much as they love their mother."

"Including you?"

Dark eyes met amber as the implications of her words came. Severus looked down on her tenderly. "Brave little lioness," he praised. "Rest for now. There will be time to talk once you have finished grieving."

Tears sprang to her eyes that only proved that he was right; she was still in mourning over his death. Hermione withdrew her hand from Severus' and looked down at herself. "When they are strong enough to go home … I want to take them by his grave. Let him see them. Is that alright?"

"I will go with you if you'd like. But now's not the time to think on it. Sleep. Your daughters will need feeding in another couple hours, and you need your rest."


The grave of Voldemort was not in public knowledge. It was part of the deal she'd made to bury him, that she'd not use the Voldemort on the stone and that it was not to be in an accessible place for his followers or the public to reach. Since Voldemort had gifted her the Sayre mansion upon his death (much to the disgruntlement of cousins to the original owners) she'd had him buried on the property.

But there were too many memories in that place to use it as a home so after she had him buried on the Sayre Estate, she'd moved in with the kind Malfoys at Severus' insistence. It was one of the few places she could now stay with her binding where she was actually welcome.

But now she stood by the grave of Tom Riddle, Thea in her arms and Terra in Severus'. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I thought you'd like to meet your daughters," her voice trembled weakly. "I used the names we picked. Thea and Terra, the sun and the earth. They look like you right now, but they might have my eyes yet, I don't know. The black hair is yours, though, I think. I hope so, they'll have an easier time with it."

That wasn't important. Hermione sniffled and refocused. "I wanted to say … I forgive you. I … I've had a lot of help since you died. Not just friends, but I talked to someone in the muggle world about how I was feeling. I didn't realize it, but you've never asked me to forgive you for what you did to me at the beginning. But I do. I loved you, I did, but I know that's not because we could have had a happy future. A future with you would have been full of heartbreak and that's not what it should have been.

"But I know better now," Hermione told him. "And I have you to thank for that. I now know what I need as well as what I want, and that has helped me move on."

She placed raised her hand and two identical stones of peridot rose from it and went to be embedded on his headstone, right where she'd left the place for them. "I've put their birthstones on your grave to connect them to their father and you to them. I don't know if I'll tell them who their father is, but I wanted you to know, wanted you to meet them."

She brushed her tears from her face now that her hand was free, hoping to compose herself.

"I was hoping to tell you how happy I was, how happy the girls made me. I don't think I have words," Hermione gave a sad giggle. "But, there's something else. You know how my Patronus kept changing? I always thought that it was over after those two changes, but now I'm a mother. I sent my patronus the other day and … well, my happy thought was them. And it was different. Maybe this will show you."

Hermione raised her wand and focused on the memory of their birth, of them snuggled and rooting against her chest. "Expecto Patronum!"

Just like her animagus form, a silvery margay slunk from her wand and ran and jumped around the grave.

"I guess I finally learned to be exactly what I am," Hermione smiled a bit more freely at the grave. "I guess that, no matter what, I would have ended up here. So thank you.

"And goodbye."

Severus, who'd been silent, moved to wrap an arm around her in comfort. She'd said her piece in strength, but now that she had he was there to support her. They stayed there for a while longer before apparating away.


Only the Epilogue left! I've almost finished my first fanfic!