For Survival

 Disclaimer: I do not own in anyway or form the characters nor the world of Harry Potter, they belong to the author who has created them, nor am I making any money from this story.

Author's note: This story should be pretty straight forward, I do not intend for it to be overly long. This will contain HP/DM, HP/BZ, there will be homosexual sex implied and graphic (I hope), male pregnancy and deceptions. This story follows the Harry Potter series and begins the last week of August 2005.

Warnings: This is more a filler chapter. Enjoy anyway!

Summary: Dealing with the death of his first lover, an overbearing second one and a pregnancy that is not what it seems might have been more than Harry had planed and wanted for his life after the war.





 

For Survival

Chapter Three

TTTS?

Previous Chapter:



His wand in hand, he found the first empty public bathroom for women with many stalls, he cleaned and glamoured himself into a new alter ego he would call Lily Green and allowed himself to disappear in muggle London. He was long overdue for a checkup on his precious bundle.



On with the story:



Forging a health card had been a hard business but it fooled everyone. His story about visiting family out of town and not feeling well had been convincing enough. But when the tests started he saw himself getting in trouble.



When he was taken for blood tests and nearly fainted at the sight of a needle, he got a raised eyebrow. When they told him to drink two litters of liquid of an ultrasound and panicked he got an amused yet curious giggle from the nurse. When he got scared of the machine the technician got really confused and made a note in his pad. When he got confused about the progression of his pregnancy and kept saying 18 weeks only to correct himself each and every time to say 20 he noticed he was messing up as more notes were written in his file. But what broke the camel's back was when the man told him he needed to get a doctor to take a look at his twins and he yelped.



The man lay what he must have felt was a comforting hand on his frail shoulder and left the room quickly telling 'miss Green' not to move. The technician never came back.



“Good afternoon miss Green. My name is Doctor Hughes, I am a gynaecologist that specialize in multiple and high risk pregnancies. Mr. Happer told me there were a few inconsistency in your file and has asked me to overlook it. But before we go into those let's see how the twin terrors are faring.”



He was still frozen in shock and did not even react when more of the icy gel was dropped on his stomach and even after the apology, to which he did not answer, he could not get himself to move a muscle.



This person was applying more pressure to his belly, going from left to right, taking notes every few seconds and murmuring under her breath. Left and right, up and down, it went on and on and on. His brain went from 'twins, twins, twins, ...' to 'twins, I need to pee, twins, ...' and finally to 'I have no ovaries she'll know something is wrong!'



He sat up and tried to move away. The woman who appeared like she should have retired years before was stronger than she looked. She helped him lay back down and gave him a stern talking to before going back to her observations. The panic was raising inside him each minute that passed and the old one did nothing to appease him, still making sounds under her breath here and there and squinting at something only she could make sense of.



“Well, MR Green, it is time we have a heart to heart.”



He felt his heart stop only to start again when Dr. Hughes waived her wand in front of his face in what he knew to be a silencing charm. Confusion replaced panic and his tired body let itself melt into the uncomfortable bed like table.



“ First I must say I have never known a pregnant wizard to come for an appointment at a muggle hospital. The danger of being noticed and of raising too many questions alone would stop most. Second, you not knowing you have twins at what would be 20 weeks is nearly unheard of. Let's skip over the fact that you said you were here on vacation with family and the father yet that you are alone and 'unwell' and that you said you never had a blood test done. What interests me the most is why did you wait so long to look in on your children?”



Harry tried to come with a plausible answer and failed spectacularly. He preferred to shut up and find pattern into the floor tiles.



“Want to know what I think?”



Again he just tried to ignore the woman.



“I think you just couldn't. That the father...”



At that he couldn't stay silent.



“He is not the father!”



“That someone kept you from seeking help, from having the minimal care of at least an ultrasound or an abdominal magical projection done. I think you were too scared of staying in the world where you belong. And I think Lily Green is not your name. But before I ask you any questions here is my story.



“I was born in 1901 in Whales under the name of Florence Clarke. I went to school to become a mediwitch in 1918, graduated three years later. I married Hugo Hughes in 1924 and took his family name as was custom. He was an healer and after I birthed and raise our five children I felt unfit to take on my duties again and went back to school to become a healer that time. I graduated top of my class in 1960. I decided to come to the muggle world and care for the non-magical mothers of witches and wizards, most of whom suffer multiple complications due to the formation of magic in their womb. I have been practising at this hospital since 1962. Most of the staff have been hit with soft memory charms to keep them from questioning my age. I am now 104 years old and trust me cutie I am still very much alive and will run you down.



“Now tell me everything. Down to who is the father, why isn't he here, who kept you from getting help and why. Don't forget to mention what potions or medications you took.”



Harry tried not to talk, he really did try. He sat there for a few minutes in silence, every other one raising his head to glance at the woman in front of him. Her gaze what hard but inviting. Her body showed strength but seemed open. She did not move, rarely blinked and never showed she was losing patience. In the end it was fruitless because he broke down in tears and told her everything, even his name.



“Well this is new.”



She turned around and made another mountain of notes on papers that seemed to appear out of nowhere, giving him a pat on the hand here and there. She waved her wand a couple of times for good measure before turning back to him.



“Well mister Potter I will have to get you a private room for a little while. I will make sure you are seen to by nurses who knows about magic and whom will be able to perform magical tests every twelve hours for me to analyze.”



She went back to looking at his children and she kept talking while moving the probe on his stomach. One child appeared to be much smaller than the other and the measure she did on both foetus proved it. Had he done the impossible and gotten pregnant from both Draco and Blaise? If he had what would happen to him? What would happen to the babies? He wouldn't be able to cope if he had to give one up or if he had to spilt his time between the man he loved and his worst enemy to date. Voldemort seemed like child's play compare to that.



He started hyperventilating and his whole body was racked with tremors. His eyes filled with tears and sweat bead on his forehead. He felt close to fainting when his magic came to his aid and zapped at the poor doctor frying the machine in the process.



A blanket was thrown over his body before a potion phial was waved in his face. His panic simply raised and both items were shipped across the room. Black dots danced in front of his eyes. He didn't knew whether he wanted to vomit or flee. The choice was taken from him when the sensation of a full body bind shot over his nerve endings and he found himself unable to move, his magic trying to free him sizzled over his skin is a show of light, gold against blue. While unable to move and think clearly a needle found his way in his calf muscle, the product injected burned and pinched. The acid produced by his stomach crawled it's way up his throat but before it could suffocate him in his immobile state he felt the panic ebb away.



When he came to the room was a disaster. Things were scattered about in a way he could not explain and Mrs. Hughes looked like she had faced a tropical storm and survived without shelter. He still could only think about the children but the panic and fear he had felt was like a shadow in the back of his mind. He could not for the life of him bring it forth.



“What happened? What got you so scared?”



It took Harry a while to remember how to talk. The woman had taken one of his hand in both of hers and was critically eyeing him with concern. He could see she wanted to just wave her wand and check him over but was reining herself in, waiting for him to express it and not force it out of him.



“The second baby, the smaller one, it is Blaise right? It's why it's complicated isn't it? I can't, it can't! It just can't!”



The startled laugh that came out of the dainty throat of the healer made him question her sanity.



“Dear Merlin! No! The babies are identical twins!”



Potion class had never felt as confusing as that statement just had. Identical twins? Weren't those, by definition, identical? As in the same down to their last freckles like Gred and Forge had been?



“The foetuses are different sizes because they suffer from something we call TTTS or twin-twin transfusion syndrome. It is something that can happen when you have identical twin, sharing one placenta but that each have their own amniotic sac. We call them monochorionic diamniotic in scientific terms. It is the case for most identical babies to grow that way in the womb. What happen in some cases, mostly in magical pregnancies, is that one baby has a bigger magical core and the flow of blood from one twin to the other and from the babies to the placenta gets unbalanced. One twin ends up with too much blood and the other not enough.”



So Blaise really wasn't a father?

 

“I estimate you to be 19 or so weeks along, from what you tell me if that Zabini character was the biological sperm donor you would sit around 16 weeks or so?”



Having someone with training in the obstetric field confirm his thoughts was more reassurance than any math he could have done. He didn't notice the wand waving and the ultrasound machine beeping back to life but he did notice the gel this time.



She went and showed him the single placenta that was attached to the posterior part of his womb. The two cords leaving from it, each with three blood vessels. She said she was currently unable to see the amnions or thin membranes separating the amniotic sacs because of the TTTS stage. She went on to tell him that the donor baby had so little liquid around him and the other so much that the membranes were stuck to his skin preventing it from moving much. She showed him how one baby had a huge bladder and how the other had none that she could see. She told him he was lucky because his biggest child did not show signs of having heart failure yet.



She preferred not to talk about treatments at that time. Telling him she wanted him to get some bed rest, some good food, some intravenous fluids and some calm before taking anything else into consideration. She told him not to worry that they would examine him twice a day to make sure the children and him would be alright.



He was redressed with gentle movements and moved onto a stretcher calmly and two smiling nurses were called in.



“Jessica and Annabelle are witches miss Green they will attend to you during the day. Jacob and Oliver will see to you during the night. Their timetable are overlapping so that it will always be one of these four. I want no other on your case and it is my call. It won't be the first time that I throw a full two years old worthy fit as an adult and as a doctor to get what I want, the department head will give it to me. Between you and I, I think she is scared I'll throw a book at her head.”



The nurses babbled over his head from the ultrasound room to the ward he would have to make due with for the foreseeable future. They told him who they were; both muggle born witches. Why they chose to come to the muggle world: felt more familiar and less dangerous to them. What was expected of him: lay down, don't move, call for help to go to the bathroom, drink and relax.



Once there his file was given to an elder nurse that looked bored half to tears behind a desk and they brought him to the very end of a corridor into a small room to the left.



“You are lucky. This is our only room with a shower attached. We'll be happy to help you in it when you will feel like it. We have said you had something called MRGNB which is an infection no one wants to see spreading in a hospital. You do not have it. But it will keep people from looking in on you.”



They went on and on about the rules of the hospital and what he would have to be careful with. He did not listen to half of it. The idea of a shower, a real one, nearly made him moan in pleasure. Sure he had no clothes that would fit, something he thought he had heard would be provided to him, sure it was not in his home, he could not go back, sure it was not with his soaps, but it was a shower.



He refused to be laid down in bed and simply walked to the shower, no towels or pompom in sight but who care? Not him. The promised too long to be healthy scrub down was under way. It was difficult for him to wash his legs and he dreaded the day his belly would be too big for him to clean his privates himself. The linens, soaps and temporary hospital gown appeared out of thin air near him and he sent a silent thanks to whomever had been thoughtful enough.



The next week passed slowly. At eight am sharp the night nurse would come in, take some of his blood and leave with a manly frown after giving him a healthy breakfast that he was sure was not usually provided by hospitals. He would then ask for help to get up for his daily shower after the telling off of his life the morning after his first night. He was not to get up on his own. He would sit in the shower chair and enjoy the running water for about an hour before the day nurse would come in, chuckle, force him out of the shower, wave her wand over his expending waist line and leave after a reassuring pat. At ten, a snack would appear at his bedside table with a note telling him he had to eat it, all of it. Noon saw healer Hughes come with lunch and sit with him for an hour telling him about the twins progress or lack thereof. Two and four o'clock in the afternoon would provide him with more snacks, six with dinner, eight with one more snack. Ten saw the returning night nurse wave a wand over his belly, frown some more and give him a homemade snack his wife had made. Seemed both Oliver and Jacob were in a competition to know which wife was the best cook and he was to be the judge. He would fall asleep around eleven and the next day was a copy/paste of the last.



Boredom and anxiety were his main problems. Boredom was quite self explanatory. He was alone, in a room with no distraction but a hastily plugged television by a scared looking lady wearing a yellow medical coat, a mask, gloves and even shoe covers. But he had never been a fan of that type of entertainment. He now was downright sure he would never watch it again once out of this place. Many books and leaflet on TTTS were given to him and he did not like any of it. The recipient child was now showing signs of hydrops which meant an excess of fluid in it's little body. It was present mostly it's abdomen. It was one of the first signs of heart failure. The chances of both his twins surviving could only drop from here on out if nothing was done. But he knew he was in good hands. What kept him from really relaxing was the fear of Blaise finding him.



Before the twins were born there were no way to prove they were Draco's. There were no genetic testing done while still in gestation in the magical world. He would be given back to the Italian if the blond was not there to claim the children as his. If both men fought he would be kept in St-Mungo until the birth. A prospect he was not looking to as the Man-Who-Lived-Twice. Here he was anonymous. The only one that knew his name was doctor Hughes, even the nurses were left out of the loop. While they were far from being stupid and knew he was presenting a fake name and was under glamour, they didn't knew the truth. They couldn't fawn all over him and ask for his autograph or leek anything to the press. But Blaise could. And he would if he thought it could get him Harry back.



 

Author's note:

TTTS is a real condition. Survival of the twins in advance stages is unlikely without medical treatments. The treatments offered are not the same everywhere and in many countries nothing can be done and one or both children die.

SlythindorMalfoy

Hope it is better now! ^^



delia cerrano

Glad you liked it! This story is solely based on Harry's point of view. If he doesn't know it it is not written.