Chapter Text
Fucking Theo. Draco swears quietly as he heads down the halls of St. Mungo’s. The moron went and almost got himself blown up by an object dripping of dark magic, and considering Draco is his medical proxy, he had been called in. He had sent an owl to Blaise before rushing here, and as such everyone in their circle had scrabbled to get to the hospital, only to be told that while it would take some time for his shredded chest and half-melted-off face to get back to normal, he would return to full health. As long as Draco does not Avada him himself first.
Bloody idiot had made Draco run through the Ministry like he had the Dark Lord on his heels. He is quite sure that in his haste to get out of the Ministry and floo to the hospital, he must have turned quite a lot of heads.
Fucking Theo. He can stay in this bloody hospital for the rest of his life for all Draco cares. What kind of idiot, what kind of colossal moron who has been an Unspeakable for seven bloody years just taps his bloody wand on a cursed object before doing some diagnostic spells first?
Fucking Theo. That’s who. Fucking Theo fucking Nott, the fucking genius who constantly fucks up. Draco furiously scrubs at his face as he stalks down the halls before stopping short, heels pressing into the floor as he pinches the bridge of his nose.
That is unfair. Everyone makes mistakes, and Theo is lying prone on a hospital bed because he managed to activate the wards that protected the other Unspeakables around him, instead of leaping out of the blast radius immediately. It was a gallant move, really, though it also borders on having him stripped of his status as a Slytherin and rather be called a Gryffindor. Draco should do that, to rub it in how massively stupid Theo had been. Call him a Gryffindor. Draco will not even have to use the killing curse; Theo will croak just by hearing it. The thought causes Draco to smirk as he turns. That is right, he deserves to get that much of a tongue-lashing at least- He blinks.
Where the fuck is he? He turns again, looks down the hall in the direction he had been heading, then towards where he had come from. There is not a single nurse or Healer anywhere nearby. He cannot even hear any steps, and all doors apart from one is closed.
“Where the fuck am I?” he mutters as he begins retracing his steps. At some point he will find himself in a familiar part of the hospital, he is sure, though considering he is an Auror who has landed himself in a hospital bed himself several times he finds it odd that he doesn’t recognize-
“Oh!” He stops. The sound came from the open door, the door he is just about to walk past. The sound had been pained and he looks around once more. Still no one in sight. Another groan trickles out through the door and Draco grows a little bit curious. He shouldn’t be, he knows, but there is someone in pain, and there is not a single nurse or Healer around. Curious. He edges closer to the door, has almost reached it when there is a pained cry and a sob.
Fuck it, no longer a curiosity. He steps into the doorway, looks around, sees a woman standing by the bed, her back to him, hunched over the edge. She is breathing heavily, he can see it from the way her shoulders rise and fall rapidly, and hears it because honestly, she is breathing quite loudly. Though he cannot blame her if she is in pain, which she obviously is, if the whimpers and winces escaping her is any indication. Her hair is a big, curly, matted mess down her back, and somehow, they seem familiar. Her knees suddenly buckle, and Draco finds himself inside and holding onto her, making sure she does not fall over. That is when he realizes that the woman is pregnant. Very pregnant. About-to-pop-out-a-little-sprout pregnant. In-bloody-fucking-fuck-fuck-labour pregnant. She needs a Healer, not an Auror whose knowledge of healing magics extends only to basic emergency treatment.
“Hey, are you alright?” The woman looks up at him, nearly clipping his chin with her bushy mane before brown eyes flecked with amber stare wide up at him. Draco freezes.
Hermione Granger.
He has not seen her since they graduated Hogwarts, sharing the top-spot amongst the graduates. It had taken a lot of work and effort, but he had been able to keep up with her their entire school careers. It has been seven years since then, he has not seen her since. The last he heard about her as a person was five years ago, when he heard the Weasel complain about her leaving the country after their break-up. Yet here she is, very pregnant, very fucking much in labour, and alone.
Where are the bloody nurses and Healers?
“Malfoy?” she pants, hands shaking from the effort of keeping herself up solely with the grip she has on the bed.
“Remember me, do you?” She laughs, though her expression is more of a grimace.
“Hard to forget that white mop of yours.” He should take offense to it, her calling his hair ‘a mop’, but she is obviously in a considerable amount of pain, so he will let it go. He is magnanimous like that. “What are you doing here?” she asks, drawing in deep breaths.
“Idiot friend got himself blown up, I’m his medical proxy.” She barks out a laugh at that, shaking her head.
“Sounds-“ she gasps, bowing forward, “-sounds familiar.” It probably does. There is no shortage of stories about how Hermione Granger stopped Potter and Weasley from doing stupid shit one way or another when they attended Hogwarts.
“Indeed. Why are you alone, Granger? Forget the Healers and nurses, where is your partner?”
“No partner.” Granger shakes her head vehemently, trying to straighten up and allowing Draco to help her move around the room. Draco doesn’t know why he is here, why he hasn’t just called for Healers and nurses and left to find his way back to Theo, but here he is, holding one of Hermione Granger’s hands, the other wrapped securely around her shoulders as he leads her in a figure eight around the room at her silent behest. Her skin shines with sweat, her hair matted to her forehead, cheeks, neck, some strands even crossing over her nose, and he wonders how long she has been at it. She nearly buckles again as another contraction wracks through her.
“Oh, they are getting close!” She falls against him, unconsciously leaving him with all her weight. Draco doesn’t know shit about childbirth, this is way above his paygrade.
“Yeah, I am calling the Healers. Bloody hell, why did they leave you alone in here?” he mutters to himself as he leads her back to the bed, helping her lie down before heading for the door.
“Anyone else you want me to call, Granger? Your friends? I work with Potter, I can get a memo to him imm-“ At the mention of her friends Granger’s eyes widen and she shakes her head so vehemently her hair plasters itself to her face and obscures her expression from him completely, but he saw that look in her eyes before her hair covered her up. He pauses at the door before cursing quietly and poking his head out. And finally, there is a member of staff out there now, a nurse judging by her scrubs. Where the hell is she tottering from?
“Hey!” He sees her jump startled at his shout. “There’s a woman about to give birth in here, why is she all alone?”
“I will get a Healer immediately!” The nurse scurries off and Draco moves back inside the room, summoning a chair and settling down beside the bed.
“What are you doing?” Granger asks breathlessly, shifting to get comfortable, though that quickly proves to be a futile endeavour, and he raises a brow at her.
“You want to be alone during this?” She hesitates, blinking rapidly and looking down, eyes clearly conflicted, so he tacks on; “I have nowhere else to be right now, Granger.” It is an offer and when another contraction runs through her, her hand shoots out and grabs a hold of his, squeezing to the point he is quite sure she just popped some of his fingers out of their alignment. Draco has seen many things during his time as an Auror. He has seen people in agony, he has seen dead people, maimed corpses and people used as sacrifices and left to rot, but this is quite different. He has never seen anyone he knows or knows of, with the exception of Theo though he ends up here so often Draco has grown acclimatized to it, in such agony. Alone. When she should not be alone. And as she writhes on the bed, clutching at his hand and crying out through gritted teeth and tossing her head back in a almost vain effort to get air into her lungs, he wonders why she is alone. No partner is one thing, it is becoming quite common even in the wizarding world now-a-days for witches to have children outside of marriage and even be single mothers, but where are her friends? Why doesn’t she want them there? Do they even know? Before he can ask, several nurses and a Healer enters the room, and the scowl Draco shoots them is enough to keep them from asking stupid questions and just get to work.
Which might take a while because according to the Healer, she is not dilated enough yet.
“How long have you been in here alone, Granger?” She clenches her eyes shut; jaw clenched as she tries to think back, concentrating on his questions rather than the pain. It does not last long, but it was a small reprieve, and she answers;
“I- oh- I last checked the clock around 11.” He uses his free hand to pull out his silver pocket watch. It is already two in the afternoon. She has been alone for hours.
“Is it normal practice to leave a patient in labour alone for hours on end?” His voice is deadly calm as he speaks to the Healer who despite his bravado grows a tad bit pale. He shakes his head.
No, Draco thinks. It is not, and this is an oversight. He does not know why he is here or feeling protective over Granger. Perhaps it isn’t that he is protective of Granger, but more worried about his own friends. Such as Daphne, who is also pregnant with her first child, and will be in Granger’s situation in four or five months, give or take a few days. If this is the practice of St. Mungo’s, he will have to advice Daphne to go somewhere else for the birth of her child. Perhaps she should summon Healer’s to the estate and just give birth at home?
Or he could donate money to the maternity ward so they can get enough personnel to not have an excuse to not have someone be with expecting mothers. As if the experience isn’t harrowing enough, they left her alone. Well, he assumes it is a harrowing experience, though he does not have much experience with the matter himself. Though, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that she is in agony.
“I- it’s been going since the middle of the night, I want it to be over, make it be over,” Granger whimpers and Draco blinks. This is not how he remembers her. Always so fierce and passionate and full of fighting spirit. This woman here is whimpering and crying, tears streaming down her cheeks as she shakes her head back and forth. Though, she is going through something quite agonizing so that may be an explanation.
“Soon, Hermione.” The Healer says as a nurse begins to dab at the woman’s chest and forehead.
‘Soon’ turns out to be another couple of hours before the Healer finally deems Granger ready. And for some reason, Draco is still there, still letting her hold onto his hand as she begins to push, having been pulled up into more of a seated position with pillows supporting her back. Draco has abandoned the chair, one hand pushing her hair out of her face as she takes deep breaths and pushes, his other arm wrapped around her leg, holding it up for her and clutching onto that hand that has clenched so hard onto his that he is quite sure his blood circulation got cut off a long time ago.
“Come on, Granger, you can do this,” he tells her alongside the Healer. Good practice, this. For Daphne.
“Almost done now, Hermione, I can see the head. One more, just one more, and your baby will be here.” Granger falls back against the pillows, eyes stubbornly fixed onto a spot on the ceiling as she takes several deep, fortifying breaths, and then she bears down as she lunges forward, forehead connecting with Draco’s nose.
“Fuck!” he curses, knees buckling from the pain of the sudden blow, but he manages to keep from falling over, only stumbling a bit before he manages to plant his feet again, leaning forward to keep helping her hold her leg up.
“I’m sorry!” she practically screams as she pushes for the final time, and he guesses he’ll let it go, especially as she collapses against the pillows, all fight gone from her form. Draco is about to encourage her to keep on fighting, because he is somehow rather invested now, but then there is a small, feebly cry filling the room and he realizes she is done. There is no more need for her to push, no longer a need to fight to get a miniature of herself out of her. The baby has been born. Granger’s head lolls to the side, half-lidded eyes searching for the pink and wrinkled little baby the Healer is holding, being wrapped in a towel. Draco is watching too. He has never seen a newborn before. He has seen his fair share of babies, but somehow, this one seems so tiny compared to what he remembers babies to be. Pink, wrinkled and…
Awfully noisy.
The Healer returns after having cleaned the baby, and the nurses has helped Granger expel the last of the waste from the afterbirth, he carries the little creature wrapped in a bundle of pink.
Ah, a girl. Lovely. No, really.
“Here you go, mum and dad, your little baby girl,” the Healer says as he hands Granger the baby.
“No-“ Draco begins at the same time as Granger.
“I’m not the father-“
“He’s not the dad-“
“Oh,” the Healer says, looking between them awkwardly before turning towards Draco. “Then why are you here?”
“I’m a friend.” Draco doesn’t know where the words come from, but they sound right at that moment. At least it sounds better than him being a random stranger apparently prowling the maternity ward. That would not be good press for the Malfoy name. He glances back towards Granger, who is staring at him with tired eyes before her lips quirk up in a small smile.
“Yes. He’s a friend. Didn’t want me to be alone,” she rasps, looking back down at the baby, letting her hand brush ever so gently over the girl’s forehead.
“No one should be alone during childbirth,” Draco quips, finding his chair and sinking down on it. When a nurse hands him a wet towel, he raises a brow.
“Your nose, sir. It looks broken.”
“Ah, fuck.” Right, his nose. He had been wondering why he sounded so nasally all of a sudden. He takes the towel and dabs at his nose, wincing at the throbbing. Oh yes, definitively broken. And bleeding. A lot. The front of his white oxford and pinstriped waistcoat is drenched in red. Lovely.
“I am sorry,” Granger murmurs, and when he looks up, he sees her resting against the pillows, exhausted beyond any words, though not looking up from the baby in her arms. “I didn’t mean to break your nose.”
“I did not properly assess the danger I was in,” he quips, allowing the Healer to cast an Episkey on him, only wincing a bit at the feeling of his nose resetting itself with an audible crunch. Granger giggles.
“Approach me at your own risk, Malfoy.”
Yeah, Draco thinks.
Fucking Theo.