Nine Months
Month 3-May
"No."
"Yes."
"No way."
"Way."
"No!"
"Yes!"
"I'm not going shopping with you, Hermione, no matter what you say!"
Chuckling amusedly at his best friends' bickering (which oddly resembled his own fights with Hermione), Ron shoved off the wall he'd been leaning against and walked a few steps towards the incensed couple. "Come on, mate, it's not like they're shopping for clothes, or anything!"
Harry turned his murderous glare on him. "It's still shopping; women go crazy over shopping no matter what kind of shopping it is. And what's even worse, there's three of them!!!" he added, pointing a finger accusingly at Ginny and the six-month pregnant Luna, who was munching happily on a pumpkin pastry with a dreamy look on her face.
"Hey!" exclaimed Ginny immediately, taking offense on his remark; Luna looked oblivious to the entire world, and focused only on her delicious treat, which was already the second in the last half hour.
Ron rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Harry, stop being such a ninny! A little baby shopping isn't going to kill you."
Harry looked like he was about to take off running; he loved Hermione with all his heart and he would do anything for her, but he was completely terrified at the thought of being surrounded by squealing women. He wasn't too thrilled about carrying the bags all day through either.
"Do you remember what happened the last time we let them talk us into going shopping with them?" he said, sounding just a tad hysterical.
Ron shrugged; they hadn't been able to lift their arms for two days, and walking had started to become an issue. They'd also been mobbed by screaming teen girls (being Harry Potter and a famous Quidditch player respectively surely had its downsides). "Yeah, well, Luna shouldn't be walking that much so it shouldn't take too long, really…"
Luna fixed her starry gaze on her husband, holding a chocolate frog to her chest. "Oh, Ronald, that is so thoughtful of you, but the doctor said walking was good for me…"
Harry scowled. "I'm not going shopping, and that's final; nothing you say or do will change my mind."
Nothing, except for Hermione bursting into tears.
"I KNEW IT!!!" bawled Hermione suddenly, putting her hands on her face and bursting into loud hiccups, tears streaming steadily from her eyes, "YOU DON'T LOVE ME!!! YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE THIS BABY!!!"
Harry panicked at his wife's tears; Ted had warned him about mood swings, but he never thought she would react so badly-or quickly, for that matter. Still, he should have known better than to argue with her.
Hurrying to put his arms around her, as there was nothing else he hated more than seeing Hermione cry, he said soothingly in her ear, "I'm sorry, darling, I am an inconsiderate idiot, of course I want to have this baby, it's a part of us, and I love you both more than life itself…"
After a minute of whispering sweet-nothingness to her she finally raised her wide brown eyes, looking at him in a way that he could only interpret as hopeful. "Really? You'll come?"
Harry nodded, looking tenderly down at her. "Of course, love, I would do anything for you."
"You promise?"
Harry leaned down to give her a kiss on the forehead. "Yes, I promise."
"Good," she said, grinning up at him and holding something up for him to see, every trace of sadness gone from her face. "because I was starting to get tired of rubbing onion on my eyes to make me cry."
Ron and Ginny burst out laughing at the slack-jawed Harry and Luna put a hand to her lips to conceal a smile. Hermione blew a kiss at her husband and scurried off to get ready.
"Merlin, that was priceless!" said Ron amidst his laughter, "Hermione would have made a great actress!!!"
Harry glared at him. "Don't be so cheerful about it, you're coming too."
Ron choked, "What?!"
"If I must suffer this then you must too."
The red-head held his hands up in front of him and started backing up slowly.
"Oh, no, you're not dragging me into this!"
"What happened to 'a little baby shopping isn't going to kill you'?"
"Well, we weren't talking about me now, were we?"
"Traitor!"
Ron shrugged apologetically and started heading towards the Fire Place. "Sorry, mate."
"Ronald…"
Ron froze on his tracks and turned slowly to face his wife, "Yes, darling?"
"You haven't forgotten about your promise to get me a cone at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, have you?"
Ron sighed, defeated. "Of course not, my sweet…"
Harry started sniggering.
***
It was with some reluctance that they followed Hermione, Ginny and Luna (who was carrying a mint-chocolate chip ice cream in one hand and a half-eaten banana in the other) to Diagon Alley and into a new baby store near Madam Malkin's that had opened two weeks before-reason why Hermione had only just recruited the others into her shopping mission-but as soon as they entered and saw the various baby items that were displayed, the soon-to-be-dads stopped sulking.
Ron picked up a pair of blue baby booties and examined them.
"Harry, look at these!" he said excitedly, shoving the tiny shoes into his best friend's face, who felt his heart melt into a puddle of Harry-goo.
"Aww, they're so little!" he looked down at Ron's feet. "How did Molly get such gigantic feet to fit in some of these?"
"Hey! I resent that!!!" Ron said, bopping the laughing Harry on the head.
"I'm glad you boys are enjoying yourself at any rate." Hermione said, coming up behind Harry and smiling gently.
Her husband pouted theatrically at her. "You witch!"
Hermione winked and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "That I am."
Ginny rushed up to them, holding a set of baby clothes, one blue and one pink, in each hand. "Aren't they just adorable?" she gushed. "It makes me want to have a baby myself!"
Ron sent her a withering look. "Don't even think about it."
Ginny glared up at her brother. "Shut up, Ron!" turning to the two Potter's, she held the two clothes up for examination; they were identical except for the color, and consisted of two 3-piece cardigan sets, which included a combed cotton cardigan top, one pair of combed cotton pants, and matching booties each.
"Well?"
Hermione looked at her. "They're beautiful, Gin, but why did you bring two of them?"
Ginny rolled her eyes as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Honestly! Because I need you to tell me the baby's sex so that I can choose between the blue one if it's a boy, or the pink one if it's a girl!"
Harry and Hermione looked at each other and then back at the youngest Weasley.
"Um, we don't know the baby's sex yet…" said Harry, causing Ginny to sigh annoyedly.
"You're both hopeless… well, at least that's easily resolved." taking her wand out of her pocket, she pointed it at Hermione's belly, "Generis Revel-"
"NO!!!" exclaimed both of the future parents, Harry pushing his wife out of the way with one hand and taking hold of Ginny's with his other.
Ginny blinked, surprised. "What?"
"We don't want to know, Gin," said Hermione, poking out from behind Harry's back, "we want it to be a surprise…"
The red head blinked again. "But, but, what if we get the wrong colors?"
"Honestly, Ginny, I'm a witch! I know perfectly well how to cast a pigment changing spell!!!" Hermione said, exasperated.
Ginny sighed. "Oh, alright, I'll just take whichever then…"
They didn't dwell on baby clothes for too long ("Molly must have knitted a hundred, already.") and they only bought a few maternity clothes before Harry noticed his wife's reaction to them; at her current stage her pregnancy was obvious, and although there wasn't much of a bulge, her waist was already gone and her breasts too presented a change in size. As he watched her frown slightly at her reflection, he recalled a conversation he'd had with Ted the month before, in which his father in-law had given him some advice, based on his experience, on how to behave around pregnant women.
"New mothers," he'd said, "don't feel very... attractive any more. Their whole body feels horrible to them, and they feel that they look the same way.
Hermione, in particular, has a serious self-esteem problem, so you must be careful with what you say or do."
"But I love her," Harry had answered, bewildered, "it's not like I'm going to leave her for not looking exactly the same as she used to!"
"I know, son, but she doesn't. Pregnant women don't really think rationally about this, not even Hermione. You just told me yourself how she feels you can find someone better, and now with her looking 'fat', she'll probably think the probabilities of that happening are enhanced. She hasn't said anything yet, but when she does it will be very important that you say the right thing."
"And what is the right thing to say?" he had asked urgently; this was definitely not a subject he wished to stick his foot in his mouth over.
"Well, first don't under any circumstances ignore her, it will get you into trouble. Definitely don't agree with her! You will never get out of the doghouse if you do that. Finally, don't disagree with her. It will make her think you really do think she's fat and are trying to be nice."
"Wait. I can't agree with her, disagree with her, or ignore her. Exactly how do I get out of this without getting in to trouble?"
"It's simple. Whenever she says she is fat, tell her that she isn't getting bigger, the baby is and that you think she is beautiful. Keep all your answers along those lines and you should be fine."
Sighing, Harry hurried to where she was and proceeded to pull her over to where Ron and Ginny were fighting over a baby stroller while Luna looked on with wistful eyes.
"I'm the godfather!" argued Ron, who was very red in the face and was waving his long arms frantically up and down, "I'm giving it to the baby!"
"Yeah, well, *I'm* the godmother, and I have every right to get it too!"
"Ronald, I think I might want a chocolate flavored ice cream now."
Harry gulped. "Er… why don't we go take a look at the cribs over there?"
"Right, then, let's take a look."
There was a wide assortment of cribs and basinets, but they narrowed the choice to one of each; the problem was deciding which one to get.
"The basinet is charmed to rock itself," Harry told his wife after reading the tag that was attached to it, "and it sings a lullaby to put the baby to sleep. The crib," he nodded at it, "does not."
Hermione pursed her lips in thought, then admitted shyly, "But the crib has the possibility of a mobile, and I think I'd like to sing to the baby myself…"
Harry gave her a fond look and nodded. "The crib it is, then…"
A blur of red rushed by them and they heard Ron squeal. Harry groaned.
"He's acting like a little kid, he is!" he said, shaking his head.
"HARRY!" Ron shouted, "THEY HAVE QUIDDITCH MOBILES FEATURING ALL THE TEAMS IN GREAT BRITTAIN!!!"
Hermione burst out laughing as Harry took off running towards where their best friend was jumping up and down with excitement, then hurried to stop the two men, who were already arguing about which mobile to take.
"I play for the Chuddley Cannons!!!"
"And you're the best Keeper in a century, Ron, but the Puddlemere United is, without doubt, the best team in the entire country!"
"Blasphemy!!!"
To be continued…
A/N: The advice Ted gives Harry isn't mine; I borrowed it from a great Inuyasha
fanfiction, Final del formulario'How It is Done', by EmeraldDragon. I had a hell
of a time writing this chapter-I couldn't stop laughing all through it… Next
chapter will be a little more adventurous… ***sniggers*** Any ideas will be
extremely welcome!