Eternal Mistakes On The Spotless Soul

A/N: Thank you all so much for reviewing! I do appreciate the feedback! Aphrodite Moon-- hooray for you, you’re the only one on team Ginny. I’m with Severus, Hermione, and the rest of the readers; I’m going to strangle her. If she had told me he was the wedding and not just in it, I wouldn’t have let her drag Hermione out there either. Heidi, MeanKitty, and all the rest of you conspiracy theorists-- thank you for your theories. But you’ll simply have to keep reading to see how things pan out! Please keep reviewing! 

The priest had taken all of the cushions from the couch and propped them beneath Hermione. She sat, with her knees bent up, trying to breath calmly. “I’m fine, really, I can get to St. Mungo’s, or anywhere else, the contractions are still about six minutes apart and I don’t think I’m fully dilated,” she said. Her robes had been hiked up around her knees and she found it very awkward to be on her ass in the office of a priest with the father of her baby standing just across from her and his future bride-to-be standing there glaring at her as if she were an alien from another planet. “Please,” she said and slowly attempted to stand, “I’m—ooh!” she cried, feeling a contraction sweep over her.

“I don’t think you’re fine, my child, I think you’ve gone into labor.” Said the priest.

Even Severus rolled his eyes. “It’s obvious she has gone into labor, her water has broken.” He said and started to move toward Hermione. Nalina gripped his arm tightly, trying to hold him back. He turned to face his bride. “Nalina,” he kissed her lips, swiping his thumb across her eyes to catch any tears that would fall. “As a Potions Master, part of my training was in magical medical practice,” he kissed her forehead. “I can ascertain if she has time to go somewhere else, deliver the child away from us, or if she needs to stay here and deliver now.” As he spoke to his bride he hoped and prayed that it was the former, the last thing he needed to upset the poor girl was to have Hermione deliver his child right before their eyes.

The young witch reluctantly released his hand and then turned back to the window, sobbing silently once more. Severus strode across the room and knelt on the floor beside Hermione. “Miss Granger,” he said and placed a hand firmly on her knee.

Hermione shuddered. As if it hadn’t been embarrassing enough to crash his wedding, now he was going to have a look at her private parts. Of course it all seemed rather foolish considering that she was carrying his child, but nonetheless she was unable to fight down the blush that flooded her face. “I’m fine, you don’t have to look, I can feel that I’m not dilated, and the contractions are still—ooh!” she whimpered. “Well, they’re still far enough apart that I don’t need to start labor breathing.”

All the while, Ginny stood outside the office, pacing. She did not see him approach and nearly jumped out of her skin when he laid his hand on her shoulder. “Jesus! You scared the living daylights out of me! Christ, Malfoy!”

Draco smirked a bit. “Isn’t it a sin to take the Lord’s name in vain, especially in a church?”

Ginny drew her hand back as if to slap him but then slowly lowered it. “Where’s Lucius?” she asked.

“He discovered the church has a basement, which means it no doubt has a wine cellar,” he muttered.

“Leave it to your father…” Ginny said and then threw her arms around the silver haired boy.

“Any later and you would have bloody missed it,” he said, holding the girl close. He kissed her cheek and she turned into the kiss, feeling his tongue for the briefest of moments.

“Well, convincing her to get here was the hard part.” She sighed. “Ever stubborn, you know. But we made it, now…your end of the deal?”

The priest paced around his tiny office. “Well? What are we going to do? If she’s going to deliver the baby here, perhaps we should call her little redheaded friend back in here.”

“No,” all three of them shouted, Hermione a bit louder than the other two.

“Right, well…Mr. Snape? Can she— does she have to deliver here?”

Hermione groaned as he pressed one hand on the baby from the top of her stomach and three fingers into her dilating vagina. The pressure hurt but not as much as what she knew was coming in a few short hour’s time. “Her contractions are about four minutes apart, if we leave now, she will not have to deliver here, but it is too dangerous to apparate or use a portkey.” He said.

“What other option do I have?” Hermione frowned. “I don’t travel by broom when I’m not about to pop a kid out from between my legs.”

“There is a medical center just down the street from here, if you think you can manage a quick walk, I shall escort you.”

“Why do you have to escort her?” Nalina snapped from the window. “Make the priest go, or her frumpy little friend.”

Severus held his tongue. “Nalina, my love, it’s an undercover center and the location is barred by a secret keeper and I know of its location but cannot divulge that to Miss Granger, or anyone else, so I will have to escort her.” The bride did not like the news she was given, but nodded her head curtly and turned back to the window. “Can you right yourself or do you need assistance getting to your feet?”

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment and then rolled carefully onto her side. It took her a moment but she stood up without the aide of Severus or the priest. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

The priest moved to his office door and opened it. Severus, much to both Hermione and Nalina’s protest, had his arm wrapped around the small of Hermione’s back and stood beside her, helping her through the doorway. “Ginny!” Hermione called. “Where the heck did she go?”

“You do not have time to wait for Ginevra Weasley if you do not wish to deliver on the chapel floor,” he said sternly and guided her through the back row of pews and over to the big doors of the church. “I will see that you are admitted,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. It wasn’t what she felt, any sort of gratitude toward him, but he stepped away from his wedding to ensure that she did not deliver her baby without medical assistance in the office of a priest, even if she was the reason the wedding had been halted. She had even been a bit surprised that he had offered to guide her there, knowing full well that he could have simply kept quiet about the place and insisted that she floo to St. Mungo’s.

“We will have to be careful, it is just a few blocks down the road, but it crosses a busy highway intersection,” he said, as if making small talk had become a talent of his. Truth be told, Hermione Granger knew virtually nothing about the man whose baby she was carrying. She knew that he was her former professor and an ex-death eater, that he had been re-instated at Hogwarts and his criminal record expunged. Aside from that, the memories of the dour, bitter man as her instructor for six years was all she had to go on, so seeing him doting over the weeping bride and then helping her to the clinic was quite a shock.

The sun was hot as Severus guided Hermione down the road, and then to the intersection. She winced, feeling another intense contraction. “Are we almost there?”

“Nearly,” he said. The traffic signal turned red and the little green man appeared in the pedestrian crossing. “Quickly, this light does not stay in the pedestrian’s favor for very long,” he said as he ushered her across the highway. She could not see anything but a blank grassy knoll until they were nearly on top of it. And out of nowhere sprang the medical center, a small, two story white building with a big red cross on the front, broomstick landing pad in the front and several open floo connections off to the side.

Severus strode through the doors, Hermione alongside him and stopped at the reception desk, nodding to the nurse as if he knew her. “Ah, Mr. Snape, here so soon? I thought Nalina wasn’t due— this isn’t Nalina.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes, thank you Prudence for your keen observation.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a card, handing it to the woman seated behind the desk. “Her name is Hermione Granger, she is a licensed practicing Potions Mistress, roughly 39 weeks along, her water broke not but ten minutes ago, her contractions are three to four minutes apart, as far as I can tell she has not had her bloody show and she has only reached a seven in dilation.”

“I see,” the nurse said, gazing at Hermione. She knew the name all too well. The pregnant girl before her was the Lycan killer she’d read about in Medical Weekly a few months back. “Was Mungo’s full up?” the woman asked.

“I do not have time for foolish questions,” Severus said, his commanding tone causing the witch to jump back. “You will admit her and see to it that she delivers the child as if I were bringing Nalina in, is that clear?” he hissed. He shared no regard for the girl before him, but knew that her reputation had proceeded her and did not wish for her to be mangled or manhandled. As much as he disliked the girl for interrupting his wedding, she was a witch working for the cause as much as any other, and should be treated thusly in his opinion. He turned his eyes to Hermione. “Once I see that you are taken to a delivery room, I’m taking my leave.”

She only nodded, not knowing what to say. She hadn’t expected him to stay, but then why did it feel so strange to have him tell her that he wasn’t? Hermione was pretty sure that the delivery of her baby was going to be a simple process at home with Ginny or at most a private room in Mungo’s where the baby would be taken from her and given up to the adoption agency. And yet all of the sudden she felt very alone. She attempted to utter another thank you but quickly thought better of it and remained silent, sitting in the wheel chair as it was brought around by the nurse.

She was taken in the lift up to the second floor and down the corridor to the maternity ward, a small hallway with two doors on either side. Hermione was pushed into an empty room, and the nurse addressed her before leaving. “A doctor will be with you in just a moment, don’t try to push anything out until he gets here.”

Severus stared at her, watching as Hermione hoisted herself out of the wheelchair and into the bed. He did not offer his assistance nor did he speak. After a moment of watching her struggle, he nodded curtly, satisfied that she as in the bed, as comfortable as a woman about to deliver a baby was going to be, and he turned on his heel and left the room.