Becoming Familiar with a Man of Misery

Chapter 76 ~ Eli’s Error

Eli stood quietly within the enclosure, watching his Mistress carefully. Suddenly, Hermione let out a gasp, then another gasp. Eli quickly ran up to the witch, his eyes wide with concern.

“Is Mistress all right?” the elf asked her.

Hermione looked at the worried expression on the elf’s face.

“I’m fine, Eli. Just some pressure,” she responded, taking a deep breath.

Eli looked at her, a furtive expression on his face.

“May Eli check the little one, Mistress?” he asked her.

Hermione hesitated. He hoped Eli wouldn’t have to check her like Poppy did. Those claws of his were rather long and sharp.

“Um…you wouldn’t have to check me like Poppy did, would you Eli?” Hermione asked him, her brow furrowed.

Eli gave her an utterly horrified look.

“Oh no, Mistress! Outside only! Never inside!” he gasped, his ears flattening at the very thought of doing something so intimate to his Mistress.

Hermione sighed with relief, almost smiling at the elf’s reaction.

“You may check me then,” she said to the elf.

Eli walked to the side of the bed, and gently placed both clawed hands on her belly. He closed his eyes for several moments…then suddenly they flew open in shock.

“Mistress!” he said, stepping back and looking at Hermione with wide eyes. Whatever he had seen or felt made the small creature tremble terribly. Hermione immediately became alarmed.

“What is it, Eli?” Hermione asked him, her own eyes wide now.

“Oh, Mistress…Eli is so sorry…so very sorry…” the elf said. He started to bang his head on the table next to her bed.

“Eli! Eli! Stop it! Stop hurting yourself!” Hermione screamed at him.

From Poppy’s office, Severus heard his wife screaming and leapt up, overturning the chair he was sitting in, and raced back into the infirmary, his heart pounding. He tore into the enclosure and saw Hermione screaming, her eyes focused on Eli, who was pounding his head against the table. The Potions Master grabbed the elf, ripping him away from the table. There was black blood on the edge of it. His servant had done himself damage.

“Eli! What in the hell are you doing?” Severus said to the elf severely, holding Eli in front of him and shaking the little creature. It wasn’t anger, but concern that made the Potions Master treat the elf so roughly. In all the years Severus had known him, Eli had never punished himself.

“Eli has failed you,” the dazed elf said, blood running down his forehead.

“What are you talking about? Poppy!” Severus called the medi-witch who appeared, her blue eyes wide as she looked first at Hermione, who was crying, then at Severus and the house elf he held dangling in front of him. The elf was bleeding.

Poppy immediately bustled up to Eli, pulling out her wand. She applied the glowing blue tip to his wound, instantly stopping the bleeding and healing it. Severus put him down, scowling at the cringing elf

Eli continued to cringe, keening about how he had failed his Master and his Mistress.

“What is going on here?” Poppy demanded, scourgifying the blood from the table edge.

“I don’t know,” Severus said, looking at Hermione who had tears streaming down her face.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Severus,” she said, staring at the babbling house elf, “He asked to check the baby, then he just…just…started going crazy…banging his head on the table and saying he was sorry. Poppy, is something wrong with the baby?” she asked the medi-witch, distraught.

Poppy ran her wand over Hermione’s belly. The blue light pulsed rhythmically, the healer watching it closely. Finally she ended the spell.

“No…the heartbeat is strong. Everything appears fine,” the medi-witch said, but she looked a bit perplexed. Severus noticed immediately.

“Everything appears fine, but you look as if something isn’t fine, Poppy. Tell us,” he demanded, walking up to Hermione and taking her hand again.

“Just a slight abnormality in the rhythm of the heartbeat,” Poppy said. “The pulse is strong, however…it is just a bit strange. Could be a reverberation.”

“Reverberation?” Hermione asked. She was frightened now. Was her baby all right?

“A reverberation. An echo off the walls of your uterus. It gives what we call a “ghostbeat”. A doubling of the sound of the heart,” Poppy said, “I’m sure everything is fine.”

She looked down at the distraught elf.

“Eli, come with me,” she said gently, “Let me give you something to calm you down.”

The elf looked at his Master and Mistress with red-rimmed eyes, then obediently followed Poppy. Severus watched him go, concern for the elf on his face. Eli was more than a servant to him. He was a family member. A treasured one.

Hermione had stopped crying but now she had a strained look on her face.

“Are you all right, Hermione?” Severus asked her. He was perspiring slightly.

“Call Poppy,” Hermione said. “I feel like I have to take a huge dump.”

Severus wasted no time getting the medi-witch, who checked the witch again. She looked at Severus, who was standing near the head of the bed, then picked up a clean, white towel and pulled a chair up to the end of the bed.

“Come here, Severus…it’s time. I’ll take the head. You hold the towel under her, and catch the baby,” she said.

Severus stared at her wide-eyed. He swallowed as he looked at the towel in her hands.

“Oh come now Severus. It’s not like you aren’t familiar with this end of your wife,” Poppy said evenly, “You had no problem going in, wizard…it’s time to deal with what comes out.”

Hermione almost laughed at the medi-witch’s comment to her husband, but the pressure was too much.

“I have to push!” she gasped, starting to bear down.

“Get down here, Severus!” Poppy ordered.

Severus released Hermione’s hand and strode to the chair, sat down and took the towel from Poppy and held it under his wife’s buttocks over his spread hands, looking as if he were waiting to catch a hiked football. He stared at Hermione’s pussy. It was very wide.

“Good gods,” he breathed. No wonder she could take him.

Poppy stood beside Hermione and grasped her hand.

“All right, Hermione…start pushing,” she said holding the witch’s hand tightly.

Hermione pushed, her face contorting and turning red as the huge lump inside her moved forward slowly. She stopped, gasping from the effort.

She looked at Poppy.

“Are you sure the baby’s coming out of the right orifice?” Hermione asked her, before feeling the urge to bear down again and doing so.

“I’m sure dear,” Poppy said, smirking a little as she patted the witch’s hand. She winced as Hermione grasped her tightly, grunting as she pushed again.

:I see something!” Severus cried from the end of the bed. Hermione’s pussy was wide and pulsing and he could see what looked like a dark ball inside, a few inches up. “Push Hermione!”

Urged on by her husband, Hermione pushed as hard as she could. The black ball moved closer, bulging out of the witch.

“Oh gods, Hermione! Keep going love, keep going! I can see the top of his head!” Severus cried again, loosing all composure as his child moved closer to birth. “You can do this, wife. Push!”

Hermione bore down as hard as she could, screaming from the effort. Suddenly there was a gush and a feeling of relief.

“Oh…oh…” she heard Severus say, his voice low in awe. “My son. My son.”

Severus held his squirming child securely in the towel, his dark eyes full of wonder, staring at the miracle he and Hermione had created. The baby boy was covered in blood and white discharge, but Severus thought he was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Poppy walked down to the end of the bed and tapped the umbilical cord with her wand, severing and sealing it. Then she took another towel and lifted the baby out of his father’s grasp and set about wiping him off. He started squalling.

“He has a healthy set of lungs,” Poppy commented, smiling at the child. She looked at his endowment. “And he certainly is male.”

The baby cleaned off, she wrapped it in a fresh towel and handed him to Severus, who stared at him in amazement. The baby had a full head of slick black hair. The tiny eyes squinted up at him, but they were still baby gray. Severus couldn’t tell what color they would be, but that didn’t matter.

“He’s beautiful, Hermione. So beautiful,” the smitten Potions Master breathed. He looked up at Hermione, expecting her to be anxious to see her son. He was shocked to see her bearing down again.

“Poppy, I still have to push!” she gasped.

“Severus…get up!” the medi-witch said.

He quickly obliged, holding his son against him and staring at his wife. Poppy took his place, holding another towel beneath Hermione. In a moment, another squirming child emerged. Another boy. Another son. Poppy severed the child’s umbilical cord and cleaned him up, wrapping him in another clean towel and jostling him lightly as he screamed.

“Surprise,” she said to the Potions Master who stared at his second son in amazement. “Two for one. It seemed what I thought was a reverberation was actually a second heartbeat. You have twins.”

“Twins,” he repeated. Severus looked up at the panting Hermione with a rather stricken expression.

“Hermione, we have twins,” he said.

“So I’ve heard,” Hermione said as Poppy brought the latest addition to their family to her, placing him in her arms.

Hermione stared down at her child, and kissed him tenderly. Severus pulled a chair up beside the head of the bed, and sat down, showing his wife their other son and leaning him close so Hermione could kiss him. Poppy took care of the afterbirths with a flick of her wand, and repaired the slight tearing the witch had painlessly suffered. She’d be good as new within a week.

“This was what Eli was sorry about,” Hermione whispered as she gazed at her son, “He didn’t see I was having twins. He felt he let us down by not preparing us.”

“I will take care of Eli,” Severus said, rocking his son gently. “I will let him know it is all right.”

The couple looked at each other.

“Switch,” they said at the same time, smiling at each other as they exchanged babies.

“They both have your hair, Severus. Thank gods. No struggling through the bush,” Hermione said softly.

Severus studied the child he held, then looked at the baby in Hermione’s arms.

“And it appears they both have your nose,” he responded, thankful.

At least they wouldn’t have to suffer through the nose jokes and teasing he went through as a child. The Potions Master looked at his wife. She looked radiant. Beautiful. There was a softness that seemed to surround her. A glow. The glow of motherhood.

“Hermione,” he said softly, “Thank you. Thank you for my sons.”

“I’d like to say it was nothing, Severus…but we both know that isn’t true,” she said, smiling at him. They had both gone through hell during this pregnancy…but it was all worth it.

Severus leaned forward and kissed Hermione on the mouth gently and with all the love he could muster. How this infuriating, troublesome and fiery little witch had changed his life. Severus was glad she had been so damn stubborn…that she hadn’t given up on him.

Poppy stood by and watched the couple, her heart warmed by the love she saw pass between them. What a lovely little family they made. She sighed and wiped at her wet eyes. She never thought she’d ever see the day when the Potions Master would be married, happy and a family man. It had never crossed her mind. She always believed that one day Severus would turn up in the infirmary mortally wounded, and be carted from the infirmary to be buried on the grounds of Hogwarts as an unsung hero, alone and forgotten. Sometimes life would do a turnabout. This was one of those instances. She could think of no wizard who deserved it more.

“Poppy, where’s Eli?” Hermione asked the medi-witch.

“He returned home. He said something about getting prepared to receive clothes,” Poppy replied.

“Aww,” Hermione responded, looking at Severus, “You have to do something, Severus. He must be miserable.”

Severus stared at the son he held in his hands.

“I know just what to do,” he said. Then he looked at Hermione. “If you are amenable, that is.”

“Tell me,” she said, her eyes curious.

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A/N: Twins. Wow. They seem very happy. All except Eli, poor thing. How will Severus cheer him up? And Isadora doesn’t know she’s a grandma yet. Working on those loose ends. Please review.

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The Burning Pen

Becoming Familiar with a Man of Misery
by Ruth Solomon

The story content is adult in nature and can contain graphic sex and violence. Those under the age of 18 are asked to leave this site immediately. You are not welcome here. The author is not responsible for those under-aged who view these works.

CHAPTER 77

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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