Harmione One Shots

Inheritance

Summary: How a simple letter can change everything. Another if only in this series.

Ship: HarryPotterxHermioneGranger

All credit goes to Elastic_Heart31 on Ao3

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Hermione was beginning to forget how it felt to sleep deeply. Not that she had been sleeping all that well since, well, a very long time. Her eyes ached as they blinked open at the squawking sound. She rolled over, holding in a groan at the pain low in her abdomen and groin. All of her still tender and worn out. Labor had been not unlike a multi day marathon crammed into a few short hours.

In the dark she could just make out the outline in the moses basket next to her, a small face turned her way. Iris had been in the world for all of five weeks, and she'd already become the center of hers. A colicky, messy, beautiful fixed point. Her vision adjusted and she noted Iris was mercifully simply making the sounds she often made while sleeping.

As she stared at her daughter, a jumble of love and despair coursed through her. Hot tears fell down her cheeks, a steady leak that was near constant these days. Her world had become so blurred, with tears and a mental fog, she was assured by the nurse at Iris's one week check up that it was normal. Although hope that her next steps would be clearer with Iris's arrival waned with each long day. She still hadn't a clue what came next.

She willed herself to fall back asleep. To not think of the weight of her decisions, or if she was failing as a mum. Certainly she didn't want to think of him and the crippling guilt. Among so many things what weighed on her most was that she still hadn't sent him a letter, the one she'd promised herself she would.

Instead she watched with dread as the inky night shifted to indigo through the single window in her tiny flat. She stared at the worn wallpaper, still glowing blue in the predawn stillness. She was sure there was a charm somewhere in her memory that would change the faded florals. But then again what was the point? There was no telling when they'd be gone from here. A thought that only looped her back to the ones she was trying to avoid.

Iris began to wiggle, and Hermione was snapped into a more alert state at the whimpering that nearly always turned into a full blown cry if she didn't act quickly.

She sat up, her body protesting as she leaned over to scoop Iris up. The routine was still new, but she was thankfully beginning to get a hold of this bit. And while not much else settled her fussy baby, nursing was the one thing that nearly always did.

Even with tears drying on her cheeks, it was hard not to smile at the sight of Iris nestled against her chest. She traced the impossible softness of her cheek. The dark mop of chestnut hair, already with a mind of its own. Each day she was astonished at the impossible newness of her. A startled pride that her body had shaped this tiny girl, kept some of the darkness of her thoughts at bay.

Yet she could never keep it away; the reality of how Iris had come into being and the choices she had made. Especially when she studied the familiar eye shape, long lashes fluttering in the haze of nursing. Her daughter's eyes were already so beautiful, and she was sure she'd inherited them from Harry.

***

The day slipped by as it always did. A blur of breastfeeding and trying to get Iris to sleep, then anxiously awaiting when she'd wake again. Whenever she thought of the adage, sleep when the baby sleeps, she wanted to commit murder.

Hermione paced the small flat. Iris's wails filling the space as if it were a cathedral, echoing throughout her frazzled mind and body. She was certain something was wrong. That she was doing something wrong. Babies cried of course, but this was the second week in a row that she spent hours on end crying throughout the evening until midnight. The only thing that sometimes settled her was nursing, which she'd just done, and like now, that didn't always work. Arms aching she continued to move Iris up and down rhythmically like Rosie had showed her weeks before.