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Petunia felt awful. Over the past couple of weeks, she had been extra tired, sleeping longer whenever she could. Random bouts of nausea kept washing over her, and even her boobs felt more tender than normal. Just yesterday, she accidentally bumped into the wall and it felt like her breasts were going to fall off. She hoped this sickness would pass soon, as it was starting to affect her at work too. She hated feeling under the weather.
For example, today she was working at her desk when Mary walked past with a fragrant bowl of curry, and Petunia instantly felt bile rise to the back of her throat. Forcing it down, she smiled at Mary as she sat down next to her, ready to tackle the pile of receipts and invoices on the desk in front of them. “Are you okay?” Mary asked, her eyes narrowing at Petunia in concern. “You look a little green.”
“I’m all right, I’m fine,” Petunia said, trying to wave off any concern whilst only trying to breathe through her mouth. “Let’s get to it.”
She leant in to get started on inputting all of the data, and the smell of the curry got too overpowering. The nausea was too hard to ignore this time, and Petunia could feel Mary’s concerned look on her back as she abruptly stood up and rushed to the bathroom. She was gone for ten minutes, first throwing up the meagre lunch that she had been able to stomach earlier before staring at her reflection in the mirror. She truly did look awful, and that sweaty sheen after the puking session did not help either. Desperately trying to pull herself together, she had to leave it as a lost cause after trying to hide her grey skin with some blusher and putting some lip balm on her dry lips. Popping a mint into her mouth, she made her way back over to their desk, where Mary had thankfully either finished or got rid of her curry. The other woman looked at her in concern, but thankfully did not ask any more questions, instead choosing to crack on with their work. Petunia opened her desk drawer and grabbed a hard-boiled sweet, hoping the sugar from the sweet would help her feel a little bit better (and get rid of the lingering taste of vomit.) It worked, somewhat.
After work, Mary and Petunia walked to a fish and chips shop together, each ordering the special deal before choosing to eat their dinner outside. It was still lovely and sunny outside, and Petunia wanted to soak up every last bit of the sun that she could, even if she wasn’t enjoying it as much right now due to this stupid sickness bug. She cracked open her packaging once they sat down on a bench, trying to not wince at the greasy smell of the fish and chips inside. She had to seem slightly more put together, at least in front of Mary. The other girl had already demolished half of her chips before Petunia worked up the nerve to break off a chunk of her fish, slowly bringing it to her mouth. Her stomach turned as soon as she began to chew. Standing up, Petunia quickly made her way over to a nearby bush, which was the closest place she could see to empty out the contents of her stomach. Maybe she shouldn’t have risked trying to eat something so greasy, but she had hoped that it would be okay.
Once she had finally let it all out, she straightened back up, popping another mint into her mouth to try and freshen her breath before making her way back over to Mary. “This might be a really personal question,” Mary began gently, angling her food away from Petunia so she didn’t have to see it, “but are you pregnant?”
Petunia pulled a face, surprised at the question. “What?” she burst out, her confusion radiating through her voice, “How could I be…”
She trailed off, her mind racing. Just six weeks ago, her ex-husband had been inside of her house, and everything had unravelled until they inevitably ended up in bed together. She couldn’t remember if they used any protection, or if he cast any spells like he had during their marriage. Mary’s eyebrows raised at that, her mind almost going in the same direction. From Mary’s mind, she knew that night as the night she got too drunk to remember anything, and Petunia brought a man home from the club. It was a little bit different in reality, but the ending was pretty much the same: Petunia slept with someone, and could now be pregnant. This was never the plan. She was saving up for a deposit on a house, but if she was pregnant she’d have to use all that money on baby stuff instead and stay living in her little flat forever. She could feel her breathing speed up, her heart rate going a little uneven. “Breathe,” Mary said softly, closing up her takeaway box and resting a hand on Petunia’s shoulder. “It might just be a bug, and I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Why don’t we quickly pop to the Tesco near my flat and we can find out one way or another?”
Petunia nodded weakly, so they made their way over to Tesco, Petunia letting the other woman take the lead. Mary held her head up high as she navigated through the aisles, clinging onto Petunia’s hand in case she tried to flee. Grabbing a pregnancy test off the shelf, Mary led them over to the till, where she let Petunia fork over the cash for the item.
Once they were safely inside Mary’s flat, Petunia was pushed in the direction of Mary’s toilet, with the other woman telling her to not chicken out. “You need to know one way or another, Petunia,” she said firmly. “I’ll be outside this room the whole time, so I’ll be able to hear you peeing.”
Petunia narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You freak,” she joked, causing Mary to laugh before she pushed her into the bathroom.
Shutting the door behind her, Petunia pulled down her underwear and lifted up her skirt, sitting down on the toilet. Whilst she peed on the stick, she let herself imagine what it would be like if the world was different, if she had never divorced Severus. If this possibility of a baby was something that they were trying for together, that they were desperate for. She wondered if he would be happy, or anxious about becoming a father. Now she would never know, as how could she send him a letter telling him she was pregnant? It was impossible.
“Are you decent?” Mary asked, knocking on the door. “Can I come in?”
She pulled up her underwear after placing the tab on the part of the test she had peed on, washing her hands as she said, “Yes, you can come in.”
Mary immediately looked down at the stick, which wasn’t revealing anything yet. “It takes a couple of minutes,” Petunia murmured, drying her hands on one of Mary’s fluffy blue towels. “One line for negative, two for positive.”
“What will you do, if you are?” Mary questioned, as Petunia perched on the edge of the bathtub.
“I don’t know,” she replied honestly, placing a hand on her forehead.
“Do you know the father at all?”
“No,” Petunia lied. “It was just a one-night-stand. I’m prepared to be alone.”
“You won’t be completely alone: you’ll have me,” Mary told her, and Petunia gave her a weak smile in response. “Are you ready for the moment of truth?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she finally replied.
Mary picked up the pregnancy test and flipped it around to show Petunia. Two lines, positive. She let out a shuddering breath, feeling a few tears prick at her eyes. “It’ll be okay,” Mary assured her, moving to sit next to her on the bathtub so she could wrap an arm around her shoulder. “I’ll be with you every step of the way, and help you with anything you need.”
“Promise?” Petunia asked, hating how weak and needy her voice sounded.
“I promise, love,” Mary replied, squeezing her shoulder supportively. “Come on, let’s see if we can find something that you can keep down. You can stay here for tonight, it’ll be like we’re having a fun little sleepover!”
Over the next few months, Mary truly was a lifesaver: attending appointments with her, helping her make budgets for the next few years of things that she would need to buy, and even sticking by Petunia every time her mood fluctuated and she lost her temper at the simplest time. Mary was the one that fought for Petunia to continue getting paid for the weeks that she would be out of work with the newborn, and the one that reminded their boss of the fact that she had the right to return straight back to her position. She didn’t know what she would have done without her, yet one small part of her never thought that it was enough.
All Petunia really longed for was for Severus to be there. She wanted him to be involved with this, for him to be picking out items for a nursery with her. She wanted to see his panic, his problem solving skills in full force, his burning love. She missed him with all her being, but even this was not enough for her to contact him. Nothing would ever change, and her and her baby would just be put on the back burner as he was made to work at Hogwarts, unable to break the contract. It was better that her and her little blessing were to be alone.
Sobbing in front of a tiny pink onesie wasn’t enough to break her resolve either, no matter how much she secretly wanted to tell Severus about their baby girl. Mary was there to catch her when she fell to the floor, assuming her pain was just due to being overwhelmed by shopping for stuff for the baby she hadn’t planned for. Petunia wasn’t sure she could ever explain what her pain truly was, but she appreciated Mary so much for trying to make sure she was happy. She wasn’t sure what she had done to deserve such a loyal friend: she was sure that if Mary truly knew who she was, it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but Petunia would never know as she hadn’t met the woman before she obliviated herself. Something that she wouldn’t have known without Severus, and that little thought made the sobbing start back up.
She pulled through, and her emotions levelled out slightly the further along she got into her pregnancy. The thought of her ex-husband began to only slightly hurt her heart, rather than make her break down into tears. She began to get excited over the prospect of raising her baby, her hand often resting lovingly on her stomach as if she could radiate all of the love she was feeling through her bump. She drafted letters to Severus that she never sent, unable to work up the courage to let him know. One day, she promised herself, yet that day never came.
Mary was there with her when she went into labour, and she stuck by her side through all ten hours of the experience, enduring Petunia’s pained yells with a practiced ease. Finally, at one in the morning on the twenty-fifth of April, her little bundle of joy was born. Feeling a small part of her heart heal as she held her baby girl in her arms, Petunia let out an exhausted smile, unable to pay attention to anything but her baby. “Hello, Poppy,” she said softly, rocking the baby gently in her arms and feeling a hand rest on her shoulder supportively. “I’m your mummy. I’m going to love you forever and ever, I promise. I will never, ever leave you.”
Petunia just hoped she could keep that promise.