Your Baby is the Size of A...

7 Weeks - Your baby is the size of a blueberry

Standing in front of the mirror – naked – was not how Severus imagined the weekend beginning.

Slowly, he ran his palms over the sides of his chest, the sharp ribs, his flat sides to his narrow hips. His gaze flitted manically, unwilling to sit on one area overly long. But his attention kept getting pulled back to his stomach, which had begun to lose its concavity – stretched over a tiny bundle of cells the size of a blueberry.

Poppy had seemed rather excited about that fact as she’d mentioned it – her hands spread on his still mostly-flat belly and smiling widely up at him. Right before she had begun to once more harass him about eating more, although Severus didn’t know what good that would do if he couldn’t keep it down.

Huffing out a sigh, Severus ran his fingers over his navel, wishing it was just a case of bloat – that something he had eaten disagreed with him. Not that he was eating much most days.

“I won’t argue with you if you’ve the mind to stand around naked all day,” the mirror nearly purred, tone suggestive. He rolled his eyes at the enchanted glass, fingers continuing their slow catalogue of old hurts.  “Though, you could look a bit . . . happier to see yourself.”

All long lines and sharp angles. Too pale skin. The old silver-pink stretch of scars smoothed by growth.

“Hardly anything to write home about,” he drawled, tracing a scar where it curved between ribs, curling up toward his chest, thickening – the Dark Lord always had enjoyed watching them squirm.

The mirror tutted its disagreement. 

“Perhaps it’s time for a new mirror – a Muggle one,” he said softly. “Less cheek, I hear.”

The mirror huffed but fell silent.

Again, his hands ran along the razor-edges of his hipbones, the skin stretched so taunt it was nearly translucent. Just under it ran a mapwork of faint blue veins, and Severus wagered he could feel the thud of his heartbeat under his fingertips as he traced them. He pushed his palm down along his ribs, feeling them jut sharply into his touch as he breathed.

Severus felt . . . almost pride at that sharpness.

A sense of brittleness wrapped up in cut-glass angles and razorblade lines. Acute fragility seemingly lingered in his frame. But his resolve was wrapped in steel, bound and determined to break and shatter and rebuild despite destruction. In a world he couldn’t control, where he had been twisted and pulled in so many directions for so long, that fragile, whetted strength had managed to keep him sane. And he had found that strength in the choice of food, the choice of clothes, the choice of brewing.

But that choice had been taken from him – just one stupid fucking night of indulgence. Severus squeezed his eyes tightly shut, because how could he have been so stupid. He should have known better.

His palms smoothed upward from his hips, roaming slowly over the slowly filling stomach – and he couldn’t help but frown. The grimace pulled naturally to his lips, his expression falling into distaste the longer he touched. But he’d chosen that, hadn’t he. Had decided to keep the child – abomination or not. Had chosen to suffer through the pregnancy – good, bad, and filling.

One choice for another.

And only then did he wonder if it had been the right choice because . . . he was admittedly a little bad when it came to making those. The wrong choice in so-called friends, in interests, and apparently in lovers as well. Severus’s long fingers splayed on his belly; his gaze drawn to that touch – is keeping the baby the right choice he asked himself.

“You’re thinking too much again,” the mirror said softly. “Perhaps, a soak?”

Severus blinked, pulling his attention from his thoughts, all maudlin and hurting. “Hmm, quite.”

He roused himself long enough to approach the bath, turning the taps harshly. Water flooded into the basin, swirling around the drain and filling rapidly. Steam curled lazily upward. Gingerly, Severus stepped into the bath, his legs folding gracefully as he sank into the swelling water.

For once, that ever-constant sick feeling churning restlessly in his stomach had relaxed. He let his head loll back against the porcelain rim, drawing in deep and cleansing breaths of steamy air. His gaze tracked patterns in the roughly hewn stone of his ceiling, letting his attention drift. There was pressure against his ribs, resting heavy on his spine and hips – but it was manageable. After all, discomfort could be overlooked, ignored given enough incentive. And that churning, roiling nausea in his guts was allowing itself to be stayed as he drew in deep, slow breaths.

Bath steam pushed stickily moist fingers into his lungs as he breathed, the nearly scalding water creeping up along his frame. It lapped along his hips, pulling slowly upward toward his chest. And Severus let the liquid take his weight, leaving him feeling weightless. He drew fingertips along the rippling surface of the bath before waving absentmindedly at the taps to shut them off.

And Severus let his eyes drift shut.