Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Draco pounded down the hallway so quickly he could feel the impact from every step shooting up through his legs. Hermione followed breathlessly behind him and as he reached the bedroom where his mother's voice had come from, he realized she was there, but he paid her no mind.
As soon as Draco's grey eyes fell onto Harriet and the way she was sitting hunched over on the side of the bed, his world shrank to include only her.
"Potter!" Draco called out as Harriet looked over and reached her hand out towards him.
The relief in her eyes when she saw Draco melted his heart.
Draco scrambled over to Harriet and took Narcissa's place after she knowingly moved out of the way before she was pushed aside by her frantic son.
"Potter, look at me. Look at me! Breathe, remember? Focus on your breathing." Draco calmly coached his omega while he splayed his elegant hands protectively over her belly.
Harriet's green eyes were fixed firmly on Draco's as she began to breathe slowly through her nose and out of her mouth exactly like they had been instructed in the muggle classes they had taken.
"That's it...that's it......good girl." Draco commended Harriet with a gentle smile of reassurance.
His heart was pounding in his chest but he made sure that to his mate, he appeared perfectly confident and relaxed.
"Oh, Harriet!" Hermione cried and knelt beside her friend.
Harriet looked over and noticed Hermione for the first time as her green eyes widened.
She forgot all about her breathing as she reached out to grab Hermione's hand.
"Get out of here, Granger!" Draco hissed as Harriet looked at Hermione and shook her head.
"No...." Harriet managed to whisper.
"Draco, we need to get the healer and the midwife." Narcissa said with a quiet urgency to her voice. Draco recognized his mother's tone well, it was the same one she had always used whenever he had been sick as a child.
Hidden concern, that's what Draco heard in Narcissa's voice.
Draco, Narcissa, and Hermione were all hovering so close to Harriet that their proximity, along with the physical and emotional shock of her labor starting made the omega dizzy and she weakly dropped Hermione's hand to shakily place her fingers on her temple.
"Step back! Both of you!" Draco snapped at his mother and Harriet's best friend as he watched his omega gently lay down on her side.
The room began to swim as Harriet felt all of the blood in her body rush to her head.
"We're only trying to help, Draco!" Narcissa retorted.
"Harriet! Are you alright?!" Hermione asked worriedly. She deliberately chose to ignore her old enemy and his mother.
"I'm.....alright." Harriet said weakly as that horrible feeling of lightheadedness gradually passed.
One hand drifted over her belly and she realized that she was frightened of when her next pain would begin, but Draco seemed to have everything under control.
"Both of you, out!" He snapped at his mother and Hermione.
Narcissa frowned and Hermione blinked pleadingly at Harriet. Draco glared at the other two omegas in the room and explained, "I'll call you both when we need you. Please.......send the healer and the midwife in."
Narcissa and Hermione glanced at each other. It was no secret that the two women were anything but friends. However, for Harriet, Draco, and the baby who was about to arrive, they left the room and walked down the hall in peace.
Narcissa didn't particularly want Hermione in her home but Hermione didn't care, she had fought beside Harriet for seven long years in grueling battles.
Hermione was not going to abandon Harriet in the middle of the omega's greatest fight since the war.
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Draco tried his best to bat away his all-consuming instincts and stay level-headed with Harriet.
While they waited for the healer and the midwife to come in, he kept his omega on her side where she was comfortable and whispered to her soothingly while he gently rubbed her back and arms to help her relax.
The midwife and healer eventually did knock on the door and Draco gave them permission to enter with a single call, "Come in!"
The Malfoy family healer entered the room along with the midwife.
They whispered greetings to the couple and Draco helped Harriet to sit up with a groan. As she clutched onto him, he gently parted her legs so the two female healthcare workers could perform their exam.
Unfortunately, as soon as Harriet was sitting on her bottom, another deep pain began and she whimpered. The midwife smiled softly while Draco let Harriet brace herself against him and hold his hands for support.
"Breathe......." Draco whispered to Harriet as she gasped against his chest, "Breathe, there, just like that.........well done."
The Malfoy family healer remained stony-faced through the tender scene.
Once Harriet relaxed again, the midwife quickly began her exam and once she found evidence of what she had been searching for, with the healer's approval, she glanced up at Draco and Harriet with a happy smile, "Yes, the child is on its way. It may take some time or it may happen quick, every baby's different."
Draco nodded as Harriet sighed against him, feeling her womb threaten to tense again.
"Most mothers have an easier time in the birthing bed if they're comfortable while they do their work. We'll wait outside, Mr. Malfoy, when you need us, just call us and we'll come in." The midwife nodded.
The healer and midwife went to leave but as they walked towards the door and Draco remained with Harriet, the Malfoy family healer glared over at him as she stated, "A man has no place in the birthing room. You need to leave, you'll only be a hindrance."
On the bed, in front of Draco, Harriet groaned quietly while another pain started in the base of her belly. As it grew in intensity, Draco frowned in sympathy while Harriet panted. To try and ease her discomfort, Draco took up massaging her back again.
While he assisted Harriet, he scowled over at the healer and retorted, "I wasn't a hindrance when my baby was conceived. Tell me, Healer, how many wild thestrals have you brought to drag me away from my mate? That's the only way you'll get me to leave her side now."
The healer and Draco exchanged icy glares before she eventually yielded, turned, and followed the midwife out of the room.
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With his mother, Hermione, the midwife, and the healer waiting outside, Draco was finally free to see to Harriet's needs.
Harriet's scent was thick and suffocatingly sweet, which was good, because it spoke to Draco and guided him about what he could do to help.
The alpha sought to give his darling a peaceful place to labor in, and so, after he closed the curtains and made sure the room was warm but not too warm, he crawled into the nest and cuddled Harriet up with him.
It was mostly quiet at first. Harriet dozed on and off while Draco held her. If he saw her wince with pain, he kissed her cheek and cooed gentle words of encouragement to her while his hands gently rubbed her quivering belly.
As the hours passed and morning drifted into afternoon, the option of sleeping through the contractions disappeared for Harriet.
Draco knew that things were progressing as He watched Harriet fight her way out of the nest and walk around the room. He trailed obediently behind her with a soft, clean towel, trying to blot away the perspiration from her skin during the break between pains.
By early evening, Harriet was struck by such a white-hot surge of agony, that she ended up on the floor, perched on all fours and keening like an animal. She had shed her clothing long ago and as Draco kneaded at her back while she moaned and spread her hips, he wondered if it was time for him to go ahead and call the medical staff back in.
"I.......I can't........" Harriet gasped dryly as the contraction ended.
Draco's face tightened in concern when spit dripped absently from her open mouth along with tears from her eyes.
Underneath her, both fluids pooled on the floor.
"Yes, you can, Potter." Draco said with stoic resolve, "Don't be ridiculous. You defeated the Dark Lord, no one's ever done that but you. Any woman can-"
"AAAAAAAGGGGHHH!"
Draco was cut off by the most heart-wrenching cry he had ever heard. It was primal and deep and it made him tremble in mortal terror for his lover as she nearly convulsed with the pain that came far again far too quickly for his liking.
"Breathe, Potter! Breathe!" Draco cried over Harriet.
In that moment, Draco despised those stupid muggle classes. With what Harriet faced in that brutal contraction, "breathe" was a flimsy defense.
Harriet choked hoarsely like a soldier who'd been stabbed as she blindly reached for Draco. Once she found his arm, she clumsily pulled herself into a squat and he firmly held onto her sides so she could brace herself against him.
Draco didn't even have to touch her belly to see how hard it was and he frowned at the sight before Harriet managed to croak out, "I.......I have to push!"
Draco's grey eyes snapped up to her face and he started to speak, "No, love! Wait a moment and I'll—"
Harriet couldn't hear him any more.
The omega grit her teeth and squeezed Draco's arms while she widened her knees and bore down hard, following her instincts' command.
Draco watched in awed horror.
He had taken the classes, he was ready, but the sudden gush of fluids that burst from Harriet and soaked his pants still took him by surprise to an embarrassing degree.
Harriet continued to moan after the flood and in the urgency of the moment, Draco completely forgot exactly who he was supposed to call out to as he turned his head and shouted, "MOTHER!..........HEALER!.......COME QUICKLY!.........IT'S TIME!"
Harriet was so lost in her own world that she barely heard Draco bellowing for help.
She barely heard the barrage of footsteps that came racing down the hall as four different women charged towards the room.
All Harriet could really hear was the blood pulsating in her own ears as she took a deep breath and bore down again.
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There was a flurry of motion around the laboring omega as the midwife, the healer, Narcissa, and Hermione came barging in to help.
The midwife hastily dropped down to examine Harriet and when she determined things were moving too quickly, she used everyone's assistance to reposition her patient to a safer angle.
As she tried to recover from the last contraction and deal with the tremendous weight that threatened to snap her pelvis in two, Harriet had little memory of being moved.
She was all pain and all work.
Work, to free herself from pain, that's what Harriet had to do.
She noticed at some point that she was laying on her side. Behind her, she heard Narcissa's voice and felt the gentleness of Draco's mother rubbing soft circles into her aching, lower back.
The hands that were holding her from the front were too gentle though, the grip was too weak.
That wasn't Draco.
Harriet opened her green eyes and whined when she saw Hermione clutching her close instead of her mate. As comforting as the sight of her best friend was, in her current state, Harriet wanted her alpha.
"D-Draco......?!" Harriet huffed as the pain started to build again.
Suddenly Draco didn't matter so much as she squeezed onto Hermione and gave a harsh grunt as she listened to her body and pushed again.......hard.
"I'm right here, love." Harriet faintly heard Draco call.
There was a hand on her thigh, or so she thought........was that him?
When the push ended, Harriet gasped in exasperated anguish and felt lips press against her leg, just above her knee.
That confirmed her question.
Yes, that was Draco's kiss, he was there somewhere.
While Narcissa and Hermione cradled Harriet and stayed by her head, Draco was holding Harriet's leg for her, both so he could support his lover and so he could watch the birth of his son or daughter.
Harriet moaned again less than a minute later and Draco took the silent nod from the midwife as he coaxed Harriet, "Come on, love, push again for us."
Harriet answered in a spine-tingling scream.
"NNNNNGGGGHHHH!"
The pressure was unbearable.
It was too much.
Harriet wouldn't survive this, she was certain.
There was no point in drawing out her death.
Harriet decided to meet it head on, to crash into that pressure and let it rip her apart as it so badly wanted.
Harriet clutched Hermione with one hand and her belly with the other as she tucked her chin into her chest and bore down one last time to throw herself into eternity.
Harriet didn't hear the soul-splitting cry that left her lips as she did.
"NNNNGGGGGHHHH!"
Hermione let Harriet clutch her close sympathetically and Narcissa frowned, but at the foot of the nest, the midwife and the healer were hard at work.
Draco's eyes widened and he gasped as a bright grin of happy, stunned shock lit up his face.
He watched something covered in bright shocks of platinum blond hair slowly emerge from Harriet's core.
Then ears, a shoulder, another shoulder, hips..........
Narcissa and Hermione looked up as a gentle little cry sounded after Harriet's ended and Draco waited impatiently for the midwife to cut the cord.
By the time she had the baby bundled into a blanket, Draco was waiting anxiously with his arms outstretched.
He had rehearsed in his mind a hundred times what he would say the moment he first saw his child, what declarations he would make, what snarky comment he would say to Harriet to lighten the moment, but as he held his little one and gazed down into the baby's large, grey eyes, Draco couldn't remember how to speak, much less what he had intended to say.
Harriet noticed that Hermione had let go of her and Narcissa had stopped rubbing her back as their attention became focused on something other than her.
It registered to Harriet that that horrible pain had ended and then, shockingly, Hermione moved back and Draco sat a tiny bundle next to her on the bed.
Harriet blinked in disbelief as she looked at the baby.
Her baby.
Their baby.
The newborn whimpered softly. At the sound, Harriet groaned as she rolled onto her back and instinctively picked the tiny baby up into her weak arms.
She gazed at her little one for a long moment, with Hermione and Narcissa admiring the newborn from a respectful distance.
Harriet's attention was called away when Draco announced, in a voice that was to his humiliation, choked with tears, "We have a son, Potter."
Harriet looked up from the baby and met her alpha's gaze with her own as Draco swallowed and nodded, "We have a son."