𝙻𝙾𝙲𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 : baby suite, muggle london !
𝙵𝙴𝙰𝚃𝚄𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶 : @ofzvbini !
her continued deference to muggle health centres was as convenient as it was tactical. wix talked, and hande wasn’t quite ready to be the one under the microscope of gossip and scandal. she lived just TWO underground stops away from the nearest clinic, and choosing to book her check up in there rather than with st mungo’s ensured that the baby, too small to yet be an issue, would just be a baby : not something for the rumor mill to latch onto, nor a distraction from the far more important things that the community needed to be discussing, post derby. that’s what she told herself, anyway.
if there was a part of her buried underneath all of the stomach churning stress that was just starting to come out from autopilot & wanted, maybe, to relish in this time where this baby was just hers - theirs, even - then hande wasn’t going to be quick to admit it. better to focus on the practicality of her choices than her ever present worry since the attack, or worse, the tiny amount of excitement growing against all odds.
the note that she had sent blaise on the leg of a borrowed owl was purposefully vague. the only person that hande had seen fit to tell was dionisia, and she didn’t want to be the one that broke the news to his friends for several obvious reasons. since she wasn’t sure how blackwood house operated on the privacy front, she was careful with the words she scrawled neatly on off white parchment ; i hope you’re okay, because she did, followed by a shorthand, reassurance scan @ 11am tuesday, 225 lee high roadd. only directly before she sent the owl merrily on its way did hande add, at the bottom, i’d like you to be there.
now, she waited. it was her fault. nervous anticipation resulted in hande being over 15 minutes early, something that the smiling desk lady told her was completely normal right before she was instructed to take a seat in the waiting room. between the pamphlets addressing various issues and ailments that could affect mother & baby during and after pregnancy and the spindly table swamped with muggle magazines, she chose one of the latter - an issue of ok! filled with names she didn’t know and all their drama - and it was a more than welcome distraction from glancing up every now & then to see had he arrived, yet.
𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖊 𝖎𝖘 𝖊𝖒𝖕𝖙𝖞 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖓 the letter arrives , which is another stroke of luck . no one is there ( barring rodney , of course ) to see him deliberate for only half a second before he sets into motion . no one is there to witness his mad scramble to throw on something tasteful , yet innocuous enough for a muggle’s doctor’s office . a message from work , he thinks as he gets ready , conjuring up excuses for his sudden departure instantly even if no one has seen the note yet and he plans on getting rid of it anyways . ( well , possibly . he debates the merits of holding on to it and convinces himself that there’s nothing off about that fact . nothing wrong with evidence of hande’s concern and the keeping thereof . )
there’s something to be said here about courage and all the ways we find our way to it . something about running and the conscious decision to stop doing so . now , blaise has never been BRAVE enough to ascribe those characteristics to himself or to even allow his mind to put much thought to these realizations . it does not make this any less of a change , a transformation , a metamorphasis . it does not stop him from wanting , even for a bit , something that has never really been granted to him before hande abaci came billowing into his life once more . blaise zabini is a coward but beyond that , he’s always been a creature of deep selfishness .
he breezes through the front door of the office , ever the performer , a charming smile ready on his face for the nurse sitting behind the counter . the perfectly coiffed lines of him soften , however , when his eyes settle on hande’s form on the chair . ❝ i have to admit that i’ve never read a single muggle tabloid that wasn’t exclusively about some new fad or another that mother found herself invested in , ❞ he says , plopping down into the seat next to her like this is nothing new . like this isn’t the first time he’s ever stepped foot into a muggle doctor’s office . like the contents of this visit are not going to drastically change the scope of his future . like casual conversations in public was something they’ve always done . the manner of joking is the same , however ; a image transposed from their room , where they’d sit idly and blaise would try his damndest to get her to smile . ❝ what do you reckon : better or worse than witch weekly ? ❞ he asks , body tilting ever so slightly into her space so she can have a view at the vinyl pages between his hands .
