Chapter 7
When Hermione woke up the first thing she noticed was how sore her body was. She tried to reach out and rub her eyes but even that caused her some discomfort. She opened her eyes and noticed it was dark but she was not in her bed at home. She thought back to where she could be and suddenly felt sick. She remembered everything from the last time she was conscious. She wondered how long she had been out and how her baby was doing after the fall. She reached down to rub her bump but noticed her stomach was once again flat and she actually became ill. She threw her head over the side of the bed and threw up all over the floor. She lost her fiancé and child all in one go. How was she to move on? She felt the tears run down her face before the first sob even made it out. She curled herself in a ball and began to cry out. She didn’t seem to notice the person in the corner of the dark room wake up and jump up to comfort her.
“Hermione, honey it’s okay. We will make sure everything is fine.” Pansy couldn’t help but she’d a few tears with her best friend. She had grown to love Matteo as a brother and about 4 days ago his life was taken. She rubbed gentle circles on her back as she comforted Hermione. “Shhhh Mione you’re gonna wake the baby, and I swear she cries more than you did when you were pregnant, and that’s saying something because I remember when you cried over the one grape you dropped even though there was a whole bowl left of them on the counter.” That got both girls to chuckle and when Hermione realized what Pansy had said she shot straight up in bed.
“Wait what do you mean baby? I didn’t lose my baby? And it’s a she? I had a daughter?” Hermione still had tears running down her face but for an entirely different reason now. She was a mother. Her baby had survived. Pansy had gotten up from Hermione’s hospital bed and walked over towards where she was laying. Besides the couch there was a small bassinet, Pansy scooped up the little bundle and held her close to her chest as she walked over towards Hermione. She put the baby in Hermione’s open arms and couldn’t contain the large smile that grew on her face.
Hermione looked down at her daughter. She was absolutely beautiful, tiny but beautiful. Her skin was just a shade darker than Hermione’s already and she had a head full of dark hair. It was straight now but she could see the curls that sat at the bottom of her head by her neck. She wasn’t sure what color her eyes were but was sure they would be brown like hers and Matteos. She had the cutest little button nose and pink lips that looked absolutely adorable as she stuck them out to look like she was pouting. Hermione had wrapped her hand around the little hand of her daughter, brought it up to her lips and gently kissed it. When she did that the newborn's eyes opened up wide and she could see how beautiful they were. They weren’t dark brown at all, but a gorgeous hazel color. Hermione looked up at Pansy and could see the tears fall freely from her eyes as well.
“How long have I been out?” Hermione asked, eyes back on her beautiful daughter.
“Tomorrow would have been four days.”
“What happened to me?”
“I’m not sure how much you remember. But after you were hit by the stretcher you passed out. When Blaise picked you up the healers noticed that you had vaginal bleeding so they took you in the back to check you over and saw that you had ruptured your placenta. They had to do the muggle surgery where they cut into you and take the baby out. They were nervous as you were only 34 weeks along and she was already running small. She was born January 27th at 3:57. She was 4 pounds 1 ounce and 31 centimeters. She had some trouble breathing when she first came out but the healers gave her a potion to strengthen her lungs so she’s good as new. You on the other hand we’re losing blood from the surgery and since you had already lost a good bit of blood from your bleeding earlier you became unconscious. They magically sewed you up and there’s no scar from where they cut you. They also gave you a couple blood replenishing potions but you still hadn’t woken up. They told me and Blaise that it would probably take 2-3 days before you woke up since your body had been through so much. Hermione I can’t imagine how you are feeling right now but I want you to know how much I love you and I will be here with you for every step of what is to come.”
Hermione started to cry again, she knew that she would never be able to survive this alone and now she knew she wouldn’t need to. Pansy and Blaise would be by her side through everything she was about to face.
“There are a couple other things we need to talk about but we can wait till the morning. You should go back to sleep.”
“Pansy I’m not tired, we can discuss them now.”
“If you’re sure. First is a name, this little angel needs a name.”
Hermione looked down at her daughter and knew exactly what she wanted to call her.
“Madeline, but Madi for short. Madeline Belle.”
“Oh Hermione, I love it, and I know Teo would have loved it too. What about her last name? Will you give her his last name or will she take yours?”
Hermione wasn’t honestly sure. She knew when she was born she would take her fathers since they would’ve been married by that point. But now she had no idea. She wanted to give her daughter her fathers last name but didn’t know if it would be appropriate since they weren’t married.
“I think I’ll go with Granger. It just feels wrong using his last name when he isn’t here.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t care, he would just want you to be happy ya know.”
“I know, and I look at my daughter and my heart flutters. She is absolutely perfect and I can’t wait to be her mother but then I think back and how can I be happy when he isn’t here? He is the love of my life and now I have to go on without him. I just don’t know how I’m going to do it, Pansy.” Hermione couldn’t even look at her friend at this point. She didn’t want to see her cry again, she knew it was silly but she couldn’t help it. She knew there were going to be lots of tears in the future and she didn’t want to seem weak.
Hermione felt Pansy put her hand on her shoulder and give it a light squeeze.
“You will find a way. If me and Blaise have to pull you we will, but you will find a way out of this funk. Now I’m gonna head home and give you two some alone time. But I promise to bring Blaise back in the morning.” She rolled the bassinet over towards Hermione’s hospital bed. “There are nappies in here along with another outfit and blanket for her if she ruins those. Also they’ve been bottle feeding her with your extracted breast milk, but they said once you wake up you will be able to breastfeed. I’m gonna let the healer that’s on right now know you're awake but I promise to be back soon.”
“Thank you Pansy, for everything. I really don’t know where I would be without you.”
“You would be just fine without me Hermione, you are plenty strong on your own, I’m just here to love you regardless.” Pansy gave her best friend a smile then bent down to lay a gentle kiss on Madi’s head then one to Hermione’s and quietly left the room. Hermione looked down at her daughter who was looking up at her and she couldn’t help but smile. She was absolutely perfect.
A healer came in and talked to Hermione for about 30 minutes, ran some quick tests and took some blood to test, gave her a small potion to help with the production of breast milk and then left Hermione alone again. After Hermione had changed her daughter's nappy, she pulled down the top of her gown to expose her right breast and held her daughter up to her nipple. It took a few seconds for her daughter to latch on but when she did Hermione couldn’t help but let a few tears out. She was supposed to go through all of this with Matteo, now he’s going to miss all of her firsts and Hermione didn’t realize how bad it was going to hurt until now. After 30 minutes of feeding she unlatched her baby, patted her back till she burped and repeated the process with her other breast. Once her daughter was full, she again changed her nappy, Hermione cuddled her daughter in her arms and watched as she fell asleep. Hermione eventually drifted off to sleep, not knowing what would happen in the future but knew that with her daughter by her side, she would always find a way.