A Mother's Resolve

The next day, both women woke up to the sound of a baby's cry. Susan, feeling the baby restlessness, gently rocks him trying to show that she noticed his desire for attention.

She is broken off her trance by the sound of the room door opening, coming through is a young woman wearing a nurse uniform.

The nurse noticing that the occupants of the room are looking at her says, "Good morning Ms. Rosier, congratulations, I came here to check on yours and your son's health."

Moving towards the bed she noticed the attempts that the woman was making to calm down the baby and said, "I believe he's hungry, you were too tired last night after the birth for it, and we didn't want to wake you two up since we didn't have any complications."

Now at the side of the bedriden woman, the nurse helped her free her breasts so the baby could satiate his hunger. After doing so, she proceeded to cast detection spells on both of them to make sure nothing got overlooked the past night.

On the other side of the bed, Mary decided to get up while saying, "I'm going to go grab something to eat, do you want anything Sue?"

Before Susan could answer, the nurse interrupted, "Oh that would be helpful, use the canteen, it's one floor up, just tell whoever is serving that you are accompanying a woman who gave birth last night."

Nodding her head, Mary left the room leaving the occupants to the sound of the baby trying to suck as much milk as possible.

"Is it normal for him to be this eager to eat? Won't he choke?" asked the worried mother.

Giving a soft smile, the nurse replied, "Yes, especially because he didn't eat anything since he was born, he must have been really hungry. I'll keep you company until he finishes in case anything happens."

After the reply the worry left the mother's face and she started to caress the baby's head, hoping he would feel more comfortable and would slow down a bit.

The nurse finished her diagnostics and informed the woman that she was fine and could leave the hospital after eating something and taking a Pepperup Potion, she also informed that the baby should take his inoculations and she would wait for him to finish eating to apply them.

A few minutes later, Mary returned eating some sort of pastry and holding a bowl with hot steam coming out of it. She put the bowl on the bedside table and said, "That's chicken soup, the canteen lady said that it would help wake you up alongside with the Pepperup Potion."

By that time the baby had finished his meal and was already at the nurse care, she, under the watchful eyes of the over caring mother applied the inoculations and kept watch over the infant so his mother could eat.

Finishing with her soup and taking the potion, Susan was ready to leave St. Mungo's but a thought passed her head and she stopped on the way to the exit.

"Mary, I don't know where to go, I don't think my father will receive me, not now that mother passed away" she said, turning to her friend.

Without stopping, Mary answered, "You can stay with me at my flat, after my disownment no one visits me, you'll be safe there. And you can keep me company."

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They left St. Mungo's and got a cab, Mary gave the driver the address of her place and they zoned off while looking out the car's windows. The drive was fast and quiet, they arrived at the front of a three story building, it was made mostly of brick, with concrete accents going vertically seemingly to give better structural integrity.

After paying the cab driver they settled in the flat, Mary went to fix har friend and newborn her guest room while Susan sat at the living room to think about what would happen now that she didn't have the support of her family and the man she loved had disappeared.

Her first course of action was to find some sort of work, she knew she could trust Mary to help her, however she didn't want to depend too much on her. With that in mind, she was glad that she studied hard during her Hogwarts days and with her NEWTs results she could get a job that paid well enough for her, her baby and to help pay the bills until she found a place of her own.

Susan didn't know how to feel, now that she was free of her family and their overbearing need to decide everything that she could do. She could go and pursue her dream of becoming a healer, however there was a big portion of her thoughts that didn't want to stay even one second away from her son, and she knew that she needed to stay at the hospital for most of the day in order to get the job. For now, she decided to simply be happy with her new light, her new black haired, blue eye, bundle of cuteness light.

Mary went back to her living room and saw her friend sitting in one of her couches with her eyes closed in a position that could only be described as uncomfortable, so she decided to help her to bed, she knew that these last weeks have been really stressful for her friend, especially with Regulus disappearance, she believed she could ask the Blacks about him, they might not know about her disownment from her family, but it wouldn't hurt to try and gather some intel.

With her mind made up and her friend peacefully and comfortably lying in bed she wrote a letter to one Arcturus Black III, the Head of House Black. In it she presented herself as Regulus' housemate and friend and informed him of her worry and curiosity over his lack of communication, she pleaded him for any news about his grandson.

Afterwards she started cleaning her house, it was no place for a baby to grow with all the dust accumulated at the various reports she had drafted for her job as a working hand in the Ministry.

Life for both of them went relatively calm after they chose to live together, Mary continued with her job in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and Susan decided to become a stay at home mother for the time being, she did manage to find cheap healing books with the help of Mary, and used them to study the charms and potions necessary for a healer.

The first disturbance was the reply sent by the Arcturus Black, the letter was delivered by a larger than normal owl, who upon entering the flat through the window got the attention of the three members that were sitting for breakfast. Little Robert, contrary to expectations didn't get frightened, instead he demonstrated a big interest in the animal.

As for the letter, it said that the family lost contact with Regulus Black in the 31st of December 1979, in that day the only interesting occurrence was the extremely distraught attitude of the family's house elf Kreacher, who was really close to the past heir of the house, the elf refused to say what happened or where Regulus was and after his absence at the family customary new year supper they decided to investigate and, using blood magic tracking, found that he was dead.

This news destabilised both of them, they knew of Regulus' falling with Lord Voldemort after he was tasked with keeping a item for the man, he never said what he found the object to be, but one month after he acquired it his views on the whole pureblood superiority movement and its leader choices changed.

Susan remembered a conversation she had with him a few days before the New Year where he said he had a plan to derail the Dark Lord's plan and was planning on acting on it near the end of the month, this news gave her the result of his plan. He failed, he died, left a newborn and his love behind.

Mary seeing her friend hororstruc expresion after she read the letter got up and went to hug her, to try and give some sort of comfort in those hard times. "We'll get past this, you are one of the strongest women I know, you can't break down now, not now that you have Rob" she said, making her best efforts to console her friend.

That made it, Susan now was at her lowest, her mother passed only a few months earlier due to a internal fight between her father and his fellows Death Eaters, her father taking the loss as if it wasn't his wife who had been murdered and proceeding to start looking for marriage contracts with other pureblood families and now the man who was her pillar, the one who helped her get out of that hell was gone, just like her mother, both died because of their closeness to Lord Voldemort and his movement.

'Mary is right, I can't crumble now, I still have a pillar in my life.' she thought while looking at the baby in her arms, the baby who was looking right at her eyes, as if he knew that she needed his help, that he was now the world for her.

With her last tears falling she got up and took Robert to the crib they had managed to buy at a discount, she couldn't stay put anymore, it's time to make sure that her son would have a good life, one where she would fulfil the role of mother and father. As such she wrote a letter to St. Mungo's declaring interest in working there, informing them of her situation of having a couple weeks old son, and sending a copy of her NEWTs' results.