Draco was dreaming. He was walking with Voileami in a frost covered graveyard. It was peaceful in the softly lit liminal space of the dream. Icicles formed on colossal rib cages and hefty femurs that scattered the clearing, jutted out from the frozen packed earth. Dragons, Draco’s mind supplied. It was a dragon graveyard. He was approaching a particularly large ilium, it’s curved shape sloping out of the snowy ground. He reached his hand out to brush his fingers along the smooth surface—
The dream blurred and faded out, the cold feel of the smooth bone dancing on his fingertips. He heard Harry swear from what felt like a great distance, and felt a whoosh of cold air under his warm duvet, thoroughly pulling him from the grasp of the dream, the yard of bones morphing into the dark cottage that surrounded him.
“Whas’ wrong?” Draco slurred, half asleep, sitting up as a mostly naked Harry stumbled in the dark towards the kitchen window where an owl pecked persistently on the glass. It was dark out, still, and while Draco had no idea what time it was, the fire in the grate had died out completely. His sleep muddled brain reasoned it was well past 1am.
Harry looked like a grizzled mountain man standing in the kitchen in his pants, unshaven, with his bed head like a lion’s mane haloed around his head.
“Harry?” Draco asked, curling the duvet around him tightly, protecting himself from the chill in the air.
Harry was squinting without his glasses at the letter he retrieved from the owl. A bluebell flame in his palm doing little to illuminate the words.
His eyes were suddenly wide, scanning the parchment, shock apparent on his face.
“Draco— we— get up— we gotta go— Luna!“ He stammered, dashing back towards the bed. He flung the parchment at Draco and began pulling clothes from the chest of drawers and yanking them on. Draco took the parchment with interest, reading Greg’s familiar script.
Just wanted to let you know Luna started having contractions around dinner time. Things started picking up after midnight. The midwives are on their way, but there’s no rush. It could still be ages, it is her first, after all . Come whenever you’re ready. I’m in way over my head.
Draco smiled, while Harry continued racing around the cottage in a state of complete overexcitement.
“Draco, get dressed! Merlin how are you still in bed?!”
“Harry— dear lord—“ Draco muttered, getting up from bed, still wrapped in his duvet. He reached for Harry who was brushing his teeth while trying to put his jacket on, getting toothpaste all down his front. “Harry she’s just in labour, calm down. Put the kettle on— for Salizar’s sake, you’re covered in toothpaste.”
“Put the— what?! What if we miss it?! We have to go!” He tried shouting around his toothbrush. Little Dipper squawked indignantly from his perch.
Draco chuckled and went to put on the kettle himself, his large duvet swishing behind him. “It’s her first, its twins. It’ll be hours yet. The midwives are just getting there now, let’s give them time to get settled, and then we’ll go. No need to race out the door— come have some tea.”
Harry looked scandalized, gawking at Draco as though he had completely lost his marbles. “Are you joking?!” He asked around his toothbrush. Draco just hummed as he set out their tea cups. Harry stood staring at Draco for a moment before seeming to realize that Draco was not in fact joking. He stomped off back to the bathroom and finished brushing his teeth.
When he came back he looked pensive and distracted, his eyebrows furrowed.
“You’re sure we won’t miss it?” He asked, sounding wary.
The kettle had started whistling and Draco was back by the bed, changing into something warmer than his nightshirt and pants. “There are no guarantees in life or birth.” He intoned absently, the phrase coming to him easily. It was a mantra that had been repeated to him during his training days in school, something the midwives and birth attendants always said in response to unanswerable questions and unknowable futures.
Harry just cocked his head, looking completely nonplussed. Draco walked back to the kitchen, bathed in candle light, and poured the boiling water into their cups.
“I mean that we probably won’t miss it for the reasons I stated, but that there are no guarantees, obviously.”
“Shouldn’t we hurry then?” Harry asked, clearly agitated but trying to keep his cool in the face of Draco’s unusual ease.
Draco shrugged. “It won’t hurt to have tea and be calm when we get there. Luna and Greg don’t need us showing up in a whirlwind and fretting. They shouldn’t have to worry about us. They need to focus on having their children.”
Harry quietly came to sit at their small table. “I suppose that makes sense.” He said, his shoulders finally relaxing. “When Hermione had Rose, Ron sent me about a dozen owls, panicking all the while. I wasn’t any better off.”
Draco smiled, handing Harry his tea. “Birth is unpredictable by nature. And, often times that feels scary. You can try to predict it, plot it, graph it, say it should take X amount of time, or follow a certain pattern, but in the end it does its own thing. You can only sit calmly on your hands and wait until you’re needed.”
Harry sipped his tea. “Did you ever want to do deliveries? Reproductive healthcare, I mean?”
“Oh good lord, no.” Draco said, scandalized. “It’s entirely too stressful for me. Schedules go right out the window, you can’t plan a damn thing, and when its low risk, I’m entirely superfluous, the midwives are much more qualified. And when its not low risk, I’d rather not be involved, thanks. Blood curses are all the excitement I need.”
“You just seem to be really comfortable with this when you’re usually the most high-strung person I know.” Harry speculated with a small grin.
Draco snorted and looked down into his tea, remembering back to his training days. Remembering the feeling of being a scant 20 years old, screaming on the inside, feeling wholly overwhelmed and questioning his life decisions, as a laboring woman in the high risk clinic squatted on her bed before him, braced on a support bar and moaned through the contractions that were engulfing her.
The hilarity that he was expected to be mature and wise enough to help bring life into the world threatened to send him straight to the Janus Thickey ward. How the old midwives, seeing his large, shocked eyes, guided him by the elbow to where he was meant to be and taught him to sit quietly. Taught him to lean into the discomfort of the unknown, to be patient, to hold vigil when there was nothing to be done but wait. He remembered the feeling of utter inadequacy as he watched this mother give birth with the guidance of her midwives, as he did what he was told.
How, at the end of it all when the mother turned to him and thank him for his help, he had to refrain from shouting back that he had been a useless wreck and nearly a detriment to the process with his fear. Instead he had smiled politely and congratulated the mother on a job well done. And, when he left the room, if he broke down crying in the bathroom, no one needed to know, did they?
While he never wanted to attend births again after that rotation, as the emotional strain was almost crippling, he took those lessons with him, remembered them, practiced them. Leaned into discomfort when it arose. Sat it with. Became its friend.
“I loved the granny midwives and birth attendants during my training, they taught me a lot.” He said after a moment. “And, like I told you, home births are a bit of a pureblood tradition. It feels very— ordinary.”
Chapter 23 Balance of Misunderstood Creatures is up! This is functionally the last chapter of the whole saga, the epilogue is to follow. Come tell us what you think! @thestralhouseofblack
