Warnings for this chapter: Unplanned pregnancy (but please do not get too invested). Violence.
I also updated the overall warning tags in the first chapter so please check those out.
27. EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED
Holly comfortably sat on what she had long since started to think of as "her" bed in the infirmary, idly swinging her legs and thinking once again that all this really wasn't necessary, even if Tom, Madam Pomfrey and everyone else were apt to disagree.
"Now are you sure there have been no other symptoms?" Madam Pomfrey demanded, after yet another diagnostic spell had yielded no viable results. "Just spells of nausea and dizziness?"
"I threw up once, after Rudolphus Apparated with me, but that was after the Dementors' attack so I'm not sure that should count," Holly replied with a shrug. "And the nausea was mostly because of Tom's cheese sandwiches."
"What about your menstrual pains? Have there been any changes?" Madam Pomfrey said, indicating for her to lay down for her next scan.
"Professor Snape's potion really helped with that, though my period is still as irregular as before so I only had it once this summer," Holly answered, not sure she liked the furrow that appeared between Madam Pomfrey's brows.
"Once? I wonder…"
"What?" Holly demanded, but the nurse didn't answer her, instead swishing her wand in another quick diagnostic spell that made a soft golden hue appear around her middle.
"Oh my…" Madam Pomfrey murmured, some of the rosiness going out of her cheeks and a look in her eyes that Holly really didn't like. "Oh dear…"
"What is it? Is it bad?" Holly asked, staring nervously into the golden glow as if it could give her the same answers the school nurse had received.
"It's well… it's impossible, I thought, given the circumstances… I thought this was part of the agreement," Madam Pomfrey said, absently rubbing Holly's shoulder and then giving her a smile full of sympathy. "You're not sick, Holly, you're pregnant."
"But… What? No!" Holly stumbled over her words, feeling all the blood rushing from her head. "Tom did a spell... He… He promised! No!"
Madam Pomfrey sat down on the bed next to her, putting a gentle arm around her shoulders and drawing her in against her ample bosom. "Magical means of contraception are usually quite reliable, but they have to be administered correctly and of course, there's an exception to every rule… But that's neither here nor there, Holly, the results of my scan are clear."
Holly nodded numbly, her hands twisted together in her lap because she felt that if she didn't hold onto something she might just break apart. Tom had promised. The betrayal echoed through her like a scream, thrown back into her face time and time again. He had promised. She barely heard Madam Pomfrey's kind attempts at reassurance and she couldn't even begin to make sense of what this would all mean. He had promised and she had believed him.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know this is important, but I can't… I can't deal with this right now," Holly finally brought out.
"Of course, dear," Madam Pomfrey replied. "I know this is a lot to take in and we can discuss everything else once you've had a chance to process. Would you like me to write you a pass for today's classes? I think it might be a good idea if you took some time for yourself. And I will also have to inform your teachers so that they can take the necessary precautions."
Holly nodded jerkily, scrubbing her hands over her face, surprised when she encountered the wetness on her cheeks.
"I will schedule a proper check-up for next week, and of course you can always – always – come to me if you have any questions or concerns," Madam Pomfrey told her gently, handing the promised pass to her.
There were additional kind words, encouraging smiles and offers of support and advice, Holly was almost sure, but they all flew by her until she suddenly found herself alone, several hallways away from the infirmary. She unseeingly stared out one of the windows, pressing her trembling hands against the cool stone of the windowsill in the vain hope that the age-old magic of the castle would be able to calm and absorb the violence of her feelings.
But there were so many, so many thought fragments in her head, all jumbled and twisted, constricting and threatening to implode. And her magic reacted, as it always did, shuddering through her and out of her, making the windows rattle, the torches flicker, the walls tremble. And her with them. He had promised. It made her angry, suddenly, one clear thought, one clear emotion, and she wrapped it around herself like armour, no, like sticky tape, to keep herself from splintering apart. It would have to do.
She straightened up, curled her hands into tight fists and swivelled away from the window, pale streaks of magic dancing along the walls as she strode past. She made no attempt to contain it.
§*§*§*§*§
Tom had been quietly despairing at the shockingly large gaps in knowledge of his Second Year students and their frankly ludicrous understanding of what a DADA class should look like when the door to his classroom was suddenly pushed open with enough force to make it rebound against the stone wall and rattle one of the portrait frames next to it.
"We need to talk." Holly hardly paused in the doorway, hardly paused to send him a glare from tear-rimmed eyes, before she strode past him and towards his office. "Now."
"Make a list of all the defensive spells you do know," Tom ordered his wide-eyed class curtly, wasting another few seconds to glare at them before there was a mad scrambling for quills and parchment and he could turn away and follow his wife to find out what had upset her so.
Holly was pacing when he entered his office, angry, impatient strides. He didn't think she even noticed the tears still running down her pale cheeks or the quaking furniture.
"What's wrong, kitten?" he asked carefully, in his gentlest tone of voice, but she still swirled around as if ready for an attack.
"I'm pregnant, that's what's wrong!" she snapped out, her slight shoulders squared and her hands curled into tight fists.
It wasn't a joke, not some weird prank, that much was clear from her belligerent tone, the burning, green accusation in her eyes, but Tom could still only blink at her in confusion. "You're pregnant? But how…?"
"That's what I'd like to know!" she retorted. "You were supposed to do a spell to prevent this!"
"I did do the spell," Tom insisted, trying to step towards her, but Holly immediately flinched back. "Holly… I truly do not know how this could have happened."
"Yeah, right." She scoffed, small and hurt and furious. "I asked you for one thing. I would have begged; I would have pleaded. But you said yes and I believed you. And now I'm pregnant."
Tom winced, understanding perfectly how this must look to her and unsure what he could say to make her believe him, again, how to make her feel better when she was so clearly frightened and in pain.
"I said yes because I could see how strongly you felt about it and I never wanted to force this on you, Holly," he said softly, trying to catch her eyes so that she might see the honesty in his gaze. "I still don't. You can't be more than a few weeks along so there's still time for an abortion."
It was the absolute worst thing to say, he realised a moment too late, even before her hand connected in a stinging slap with his cheek and she hissed at him with utter hatred. "You will not murder anyone else from my family! You fucking will not!"
Her magic crackled around her like a thundercloud, tiny sparks of blue and white fizzling over her creamy pale skin, her curly hair even wilder than usual and her eyes luminescent with her rage. She was breath-taking, beautiful and dangerous, and she stormed past him and out of his office before he managed to rally his thoughts. He raked his fingers harshly through his hair, sighing in frustration and worry.
§*§*§*§*§
He couldn't go after her, as much as he would have liked to. He still had classes to teach and cuing in Dumbledore that something was amiss would undoubtedly only serve to make things worse. And perhaps, he thought, Holly would be more disposed to listen to his apology once she had had some time to calm down… and once he had figured out the words to say.
Only when he finally spotted her on the stairs on the way to dinner in the Great Hall that evening, her temper didn't seem to have cooled in the slightest and she interrupted him before he had got through the first sentence of his carefully planned speech.
"Get out of my way," she bit out, her gaze stubbornly focused on something to his right. "I have nothing to say to you and you have nothing to say that I would want to hear."
"Holly…" he all but pleaded, but she only turned farther away.
"You heard her. Let us pass," Miss Granger commanded, making up for Holly's avoidance of his gaze with her own fierce glare.
"Careful, Miss Granger, I'm still your teacher," he retorted, not in the least impressed by her intervention.
"I'm not talking to you as my teacher. I'm talking to you as someone who tricked and hurt my friend. I take offense to that, sir, so you're welcome to take offense to my words," she informed him in a clipped tone, her usual persona of bookish model student discarded completely to reveal the reason why Miss Granger unequivocally belonged in the House of the Brave.
"I didn't trick her. Holly, I swear I…" But Holly had used his momentary distraction to make her escape, leaving him alone with his frustration, Miss Granger's accusing glare and two dozen curious students milling about to catch some tantalising titbit of first-hand gossip. And then, just when he thought it couldn't get any worse…
"Trouble in paradise, my dear boy?" Dumbledore warbled with ill-hidden glee, ambling towards him with a manic twinkle in his eyes. "Oh my, and you seemed so at ease with her just the other day… But you must have expected it, surely? Hogwarts was always the place where Holly could be herself, after all."
Tom hissed out an angry malediction, furious at Dumbledore's insinuation and meddling. Could it be that he had had a hand in what had happened? But no, no, he knew he had done the contraception spell correctly and there had been no indication of any magical interference that could have hampered its effectiveness. It should have worked perfectly. And yet it hadn't.
"Holly is no longer your concern," Tom pressed out, trying to keep his voice even.
"My dear boy, I only wish to help," Dumbledore replied and if he hadn't known him so well, if he hadn't had years and decades to study and catalogue even the tiniest fissure in Dumbledore's kindly façade, he might have been fooled by his air of concern and sympathy.
He sneered, allowing a hint of arrogance to seep into his words, "You bargained away any right of 'helping' her when you signed the contract, Dumbledore. You'd best remember that… before I see fit to remind you."
He turned away, not interested in hearing Dumbledore's reply. A quick look into the Great Hall confirmed what he had already suspected, that Holly wasn't in there, but had escaped either back to Gryffindor Tower or more likely to wherever she had hidden out during the day, somewhere where he had been unable to find her. He suppressed a sigh, quietly resolving to send a house-elf to bring her some dinner at least, and left for his own quarters. He could only hope that Holly would come to him when she was ready.
§*§*§*§*§
"My Lord?" Lucius greeted him with a hint of surprise in his smooth voice when he stepped through the Floo a few hours later to find the Dark Lord staring moodily into the flames, but failing to acknowledge his presence. "Did something happen?"
"Holly's pregnant," Tom replied dully, looking up slowly.
Lucius was silent for a long moment, finally sinking down in the armchair next to his before hazarding carefully, "I was under the impression you had agreed to use contraception, my Lord?"
Tom groaned in frustration, handing Lucius the book that he had been pouring over, reading and re-reading the instructions for the spell he had used. "I did. Contraceptus - bottom right corner. I don't know why it didn't work."
Lucius accepted the book from him, running one elegant finger slowly down the page as he read and turning the page when he had reached the end. "My Lord…" He hesitated. "Did you reapply it?"
Tom looked at him with slight irritation. "The instructions say that the spell will remain in effect until it is lifted. I did not lift it."
"No, but... my Lord, the spell has to be reapplied monthly, after each womanly cycle," Lucius answered carefully, handing the book back to him and tapping the first paragraph on the new page that stated just that.
Tom hissed out a curse. He would never have said so to Holly, but privately he had thought the most likely explanation for her unforeseen pregnancy to lie in her wild magic, her subconscious perhaps perceiving his spell as a threat and quietly dismantling it. But now it turned out that it had been his fault, that his own inattentiveness and carelessness had led to this situation. Holly had every right to be furious with him.
"I will have to consult with Brutus, but since this concerns one of the subsections rather than the main contract, we should be able to mitigate the consequences. We can probably still claim that any breach of contract occurred unintentionally or that it was as much Holly's responsibility as yours to prevent an unplanned pregnancy," Lucius offered after a few moments.
"I don't care about the contract!" Tom snapped angrily, even knowing how foolish that was. "She thinks I tricked her, Lucius. And she won't even talk to me. I can't say I blame her, after my first reaction."
"Dare I ask what that might have been?" Lucius asked, ever polite.
He sighed. "Holly was upset, scared, and I just wanted to fix it. So I told her she could get an abortion."
"I see," Lucius commented evenly. "I'm assuming she did not take that well."
"Of course not," Tom retorted, angry at himself again. "All the progress we made… now we're back to square one with her thinking that I mean harm to her and her family. You should have seen her, Lucius, she was just so hurt…"
"She's young and probably scared at what this will mean for her, but she's also incredibly strong and the most forgiving person I know," Lucius tried to reassure him. "I'm sure she won't hold this honest mistake nor your admittedly poor choice of words against you once you've explained it her. And apologised. Profusely."
Tom nodded reluctantly, huffing out another sigh. It seemed almost foolishly hopeful, but he knew there was at least a chance that Lucius was right. Holly wasn't one to hold unnecessary grudges. Her anger usually burnt bright and quick, with the potential of destruction and violence, but with none of the premediated thirst for revenge and vindictiveness that Tom harboured in his own soul. Holly would cool down, eventually, and she might find it in herself to forgive him, but he was less optimistic about the fragile bonds of trust he had been trying to foster between them over these last few weeks.
Holly might be able to forgive, but her trust, once lost, was not something easily regained, as the polite distance she had kept between herself and Dumbledore could clearly illustrate. And speak of the Devil, he did not relish the thought of how Dumbledore might manipulate the situation – try to manipulate Holly – once he inevitably learned the news about Holly's pregnancy. He knew that Holly needed time; he just wasn't sure he could give it to her.
"I need to speak to her, apologise," he said.
"Of course. We can discuss the details of the amendment bill another time," Lucius agreed immediately, rising to his feet. "Please let me know if there's anything with which I may assist you. And, my Lord? Congratulations. Even if unexpected and unplanned, any child is a blessing and I know that both you and Holly have long since longed for a family."
"Thank you, Lucius," Tom answered sincerely, though he wasn't quite sure that sentiment applied when his wife was barely out of childhood herself. He'd hardly given thought to the child, his child, growing in her belly. It was nothing more than an abstract idea and a very real complication at the moment. It didn't bear thinking about.
He sighed, pushing to his feet, determined to find his wayward wife and make her talk to him, to make her listen. Maybe the Bloody Baron could point him in the right direction.