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Sable's Birth

Rated M for nudity, mentions of non-explicit sex and a descriptive birth scene.

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September 19, 2009

Hermione Granger stretched languidly between the cotton sheets of an unfamiliar bed, pausing only when she bumped against a lean, naked thigh. Humming with satisfaction, she rolled onto her side and traced her hand along the plane of that thigh up past a well-defined hip bone and onto to a muscular chest. She stopped with her palm resting above the spot where heart and magic thrummed softly, teasing a smattering of chest hairs with her fingertips. In the soft light of early morning she could appreciate the gentle lines and firm muscles that made up Neville Longbottom, something she never thought she'd get to say. Though they had been married a year, last night she had felt his body moving against hers, within hers, for the first time and she smiled at the memory.

"Hullo, love," Neville murmured sleepily, his sandy hair hiding his face from sight even as he wrapped an arm around Hermione's waist and pulled her as close as her overlarge belly would allow. "Have you been awake long?"

"Hmmm," Hermione murmured, nesling her face into his shoulder. "Had contractions off and on all night."

She felt him tense against her before rolling onto his side and placing both hands flat onto her stomach. He smiled as her muscles rippled beneath his palms, still looking rather sleepy. Unable to help herself, Hermione brushed his bangs out of his eyes and pressed a chaste kiss against his lips.

"Do I need to floo Severus yet?" he asked.

"No. Let's sleep a while before we let him know. It's going to be some time yet and you wore me out."

"You sure? If it was mine, I'd want to know as soon as your first contractions hit."

"I'm sure."

"He won't kill me for keeping you?" Neville's expression melted into one of worry and he bit his lower lip.

Hermione chuckled and threw a leg over his. "What Severus doesn't know won't hurt him. Go back to sleep."

Mumbling about angry husbands and legilimency and sneaky bats, Neville scooped Hermione closer to his chest and pillowed his head against her curls. Within minutes they were both asleep.

Neville awoke hours later to the sounds of Hermione moaning loudly. The bed was cold next to him and he sat up quickly, the covers falling off his bare chest as he looked around his room for his wife. She was nowhere to be found and for a moment he wondered if it had all been a dream before he heard her bite back a whimper.

"Hermione?" he asked, leaving the warmth of the covers.

"B-bathroom," she cried and Neville quickly crossed the room to the door that was slightly ajar.

When he pushed it open it was to find Hermione standing under the spray of the showerhead, as naked as the day her mother birthed her, with her arms tossed over her head and looped around the neck of a very wet Severus Snape. Suddenly conscious of his own nudity, Neville grabbed one of the fluffy brown towels off the shelf and wrapped it around his waist before meeting Severus' dark, penetrating gaze.

"Severus," he said levelly.

A stream of water running down the length of his nose before cascading off the end didn't make Severus' presence any less commanding. A muscle jumped in the Potion Master's jaw before he dipped his chin in greeting. "Longbottom," he drawled. "Would you talk some sense into our wife? She seems to think flooing or apparating to the hospital will be detrimental to herself or my child."

"I am standing right here!" Hermione snapped, each word punching between her gritted teeth as her legs trembled through another contraction. Severus held her up with both arms wrapped tight around her–one beneath her milk-filled breasts and the other beneath her swollen belly. The fabric from his black shirt was soaked through and clung tight to his forearms and her skin. Neville had to drag his gaze away from the contrast and tell himself to focus.

"Love," Neville cooed, stepping into the spray with her and Severus so he could try and talk some sense into their wife. Soothing her curls back from her brow, he waited for her to meet his eyes. "Wouldn't you rather give birth in a nice, warm hospital bed?"

She glared at him and Neville had to override his initial reaction of retreat. Sometimes Hermione looked just like Severus when she was upset.

"One in every one thousand, two-hundred and fifty-one women lose their child when they floo to St Mungos," Hermione recited, her glare intensifying as another contraction hit and her legs slipped out from under her. Neville supported her from the front as she leaned back into Severus and wondered if they'd be able to talk sense into her before the baby came.

When she came back to herself, she continued as though nothing had happened. "And one in every six-hundred and seven women lose their child by apparating there. We. Are. Not. Going. To. St. Mungos."

"Well you're not having my child in Longbottom's shower!" Severus' lip curled and Neville stepped back. He knew that look all to well. As the Potions Master scooped their naked wife into his arms and stepped out of the shower, Neville readjusted the towel around his waist and turned the knobs. He shook the water out of his eyes and met Severus' gaze over a verbally resistant Hermione.

"Shall I call Lucius and have him send the family healer?" he asked.

Severus nodded curtly. "You may as well floo the others when you're done. Tell the twins if they even think of bringing a Weasley product into this house while my child is being born, I will personally flay them alive."

As Severus spun around, robes billowing, and carried their wife out of the bathroom, Neville realized that even fully clothed and sopping wet the man was able to make a dramatic exit. He narrowed his eyes–surely there was a spell for that.

"Now, Longbottom!"

Jumping at Severus' sharp tone, Neville hurried to locate his own bathrobe and head down to the floo. It was going to be a very long and busy day.

Severus paced back and forth in front of the door behind which Hermione was giving birth. Ten hours into it and she had kicked him out for, quote, "driving me mad with your incessant pacing". That had been two hours ago and he hadn't heard a single sound from in there in over twenty minutes.

As he raised his hand to knock, Lucius interrupted him. "Sit down, Severus. When the baby's coming she'll call for you."

He scowled but did as he was bade, stalking across the study and settling into a leather arm chair. The six other men in the room were all either staring at him with various looks of amusement or wisely avoiding his gaze like Longbottom.

"She put a silencing charm on the door," he complained to nobody in particular. "She could be dying in there and I wouldn't know

"Hermione didn't place a silencing charm," Fred said.

"We did it," George added.

"You were–"

"Getting too worked up."

"We decided you couldn't handle hearing her anymore."

"You'd be worked up if this was your child," Severus snapped, glowering at the twins.

"Don't be daft, Severus," Lucius purred. "She's our wife, too. It's not easy for any of us to sit here and wait for news."

"Hmmm," Severus conceded, glancing around the room at his wife's six other husbands.

Fred and George grinned back at him from the settee where they were squished in on either side of a very relaxed-looking Lupin. Lucius, sitting in the second arm chair on the opposite side of the fireplace, smirked and raised his glass to the twins. Perusing the bookshelves and looking as out of place as a dragon at a tea party, Gregory Goyle merely glanced back at him and shrugged. Out of all her other husbands, Severus like Goyle best–he was almost always silent. Chancing a glance at Longbottom, who was sitting behind the desk still peering at his hands, Severus smirked wryly. They were the oddest group but somehow Hermione had managed to keep them from killing one another for an entire year.

"I'll remember all your support when it's your turns," he drawled.

The twins guffawed at that while Longbottom whimpered. Lucius smirked back–out of all of them, he was the only one who already had an heir and therefore wasn't required to produce a child with Hermione. Severus knew his wife, though, and he figured Lucius' spawn would be nipping at his own child's ankles before he or she went to primary school. She'd want things to be fair.

Relaxing into the chair at the thought of his wife browbeating Lucius into a kid or two, Severus missed the healer popping his head through the door and asking for him. It took Fred tossing a crumpled up ball of paper at him for Severus to jerk his head up. Before he even heard the words, "Your wife is requesting you," he was halfway to the door.

"What's wrong?"

Hermione's voice came from inside the room, filled with the kind of humorless tension that comes from extended periods of unrelenting pain. "Nothing's wrong you daft man. It's bloody time."

Snickering could be heard behind him and Severus sent a couple wandless stinging hexes in the general direction of Fred and George as he swept past the healer and into his wife's room. Smirking at the shocked oaths echoing behind him, he settled onto the edge of the bed and brushed a kiss across his wife's sweat-soaked forehead.

"Never kick me out of your laboring room again," he demanded, not caring that it sounded like a plea.

Wrapping her hand around his, Hermione nodded tiredly. "What makes you think we're doing this again?"

Lowering his voice, he whispered in her ear the way he knew she loved. "Oh, I think I can convince you to do this many, many times over, Hermione. Don't you?"

She blushed and he smoothed her hair back from her face. Pressing a kiss against her chapped lips, he whispered his love for her before glancing at the healer. "Where do you want me?"

The healer succeeded in meeting his gaze but didn't quite manage to keep the stutter out of her voice. "I-in the bathtub, Master Snape. Your wife has requested a w-water birth."

He arched an eyebrow. "Is that safe?"

Hermione smacked his arm. "Perfectly. Now help me up."

Pursing his lips, Severus did as he was bade. He carried Hermione to the tub and settled her into the warm water. Kicking off his shoes, he rolled his sleeves to his elbows before stepping into the tub to sit behind her. As soon as she was in his arms again, Hermione laid her head against his shoulder, wrapped her hands around his arm like vice grips and began moaning.

"Push, Mrs. Granger. Push," the healer urged.

Severus was fairly certain the hair on his arm might never grow back from where his witch ripped it out. But, an hour and a half later, he didn't much give a damn about his bare forearm as the healer pulled his infant daughter out of the water and placed her with a wet smack of skin against Hermione's bare chest.

Sable Jean Granger Snape was bloody, waxy, wrinkly and far too red in Severus' opinion, but his heart melted anyway. As he brushed a finger through the inch of pitch black hair on his daughter's head, he kissed Hermione's face.

"You did beautifully, wife," he murmured against her skin.

"Hmmm," Hermione agreed, nudging Sable to her breast. "You did pretty good yourself, husband."

Hey, thanks so much for reading! I'm not going to mark this story complete because I have an entire head canon going for Hermione and her seven husbands and figure this story can be sort of a collection of shorts for that canon. It will be added to as the whim to write hits me. I will try to post each short's rating at the beginning of the chapter so you don't have to read M-rated if you don't want to. :L)

Thanks again for reading. Blessings!