Nine More Months To Go

Spanky_Potter

Rating: PG13
Genres: Romance, Humor
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 11/08/2004
Last Updated: 04/09/2004
Status: in_progress

With the arrival of a second child due soon, Harry Potter reminices about his previous trials and tribulation the first time around dealing with Ron- reckless international Quidditch Star and in his own words, a 'sex symbol', Hermione's uncanny and at times, dangerous family, and a pregnant wife in the mix of his already hectic life.

Chapters

1. Chapter One

2. Chapter Two

3. Chapter Three

4. Chapter Four

5. Chapter Five

6. Chapter Six

1. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter, and every seer I’ve contacted within a fifteen mile radius tells me I never shall. *sobs*

Author’s Note: Hello, all! After all my positive feedback from False Accusations (Thanks to all who read and reviewed! Now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside…) I’ve decided to post this fic, probably my favorite novel-length that I’ve written, on Portkey. I’ll be updating frequently on this fic so enjoy!

P.S. The majority of this fic will be written in Harry’s P.O.V., just so there’s no confusion.

P.P.S. I have no idea whatsoever how to stop that annoying run-off of the entire page. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Nine More Months To Go

My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkened kitchen anxiously as I surveyed my surroundings. Though I had cleaned the dishes an hour earlier, the place was an absolute mess as bits of cookie crumbs and milk were scattered all about, as it was every time Harmony came in for a midnight snack...Not even troubling myself with the state of the kitchen, I scrambled across the damp with milk floor over to the counter, stepping over the usual things, discarded toys, books, a brick, unidentified green slime -Even though I'm positive Hermione's warned Harmony to dispose of it for the last two years... Atop of the counter were, as I expected, nearly a mountain of crushed graham crackers, chocolate syrup, and...Marshmallows?

"Hmm...You'd think Hermione would stop allowing Harmony to make smores," I stated aloud just as my hand met a sticky substance of spilt chocolate syrup. My darling three year old's sweetness can only be matched by the sugary mess she seems to constantly to be munching on, another bad habit her heinous dentist grandfather claims she picked up from me, along with being 'unkempt', as he would put it, avoiding bath time, picking my nose (I wasn't picking it, mind you I had an itch!).

"Harry, come, don't keep me waiting..." I heard my wife of five years call temptingly from the bedroom. That's right; I was in here for something to accompany my treat. Or rather our treat as Hermione’s been rather grabby lately and insists on in taking upon my pleasures, not that I mind of course!

I hastily snatched up the gummy bottle of chocolate syrup from the counter and nearly ransacked the cabinets in search of the whip cream. Quickly I made my way down the halls. I had to move a bit more stealthily as I strode in front of my daughters open bedroom as she could smell sweets, let alone chocolate about a mile away...I paused in front of her open door and listened in on her steady breathing for a while. Good. She was finally asleep. It’s quite a task to get her from her bath to the bed and its absolute murder to get her to stay there.

The routine is as follows:

1) Playtime (Which lasts for about an eternity and a half. Not that I mind though)

2) (I mention a Bath) Two Hour Whining interlude

3) Actual Bath (Squirt-bubble-bath-in-my-eye-while-I attempt-to-wash-her-tangled-mop-of-curls time)

4) Pajama Time ("Darling there really is no difference between the Puddlemere United jimjams and the Chudley Canons jimjams, would you just put it on?! -No you can't sleep naked, you'd catch a cold -what did you say? Why do Mummy and I sleep naked? Er, now where are those stupid Chudley Canons pajamas...?"),

5) Playtime II (Didn’t I tell you it was never-ending?)

6) Story time ("Hermione, get in here before your child kills me!")

7) Tuck in time ("There are no monsters under your bed, Harmony!")

8) Snack time ("Harmony, didn't your mother put you to bed already?")

9) Tuck in time II ("Oh, there really is a boggart under your bed..." "Daddy, why the scary monster turn into Grandpa when you come in here?" "Er, too many questions are an affliction, sweetheart." "What's an affliction?" "...Time for another story, Harmony-Darling.")

Finally, I reached my bedroom, our bedroom. I poked my head in the doorway and waved the can of whip cream around giddily like a right plonker. She loves it when I get excited…in a, er…idiotic sort of way (At least I hoped she did, since I fell into that mode often). Hermione was there, of course lounging on the bed. She was already clad in one of the slightly revealing nighties that her father had attempted to burn on his last

visit. Her cinnamon shaded locks fell in feathery layers of curls over her shoulders, much like Harmony's, I thought with a grin.

"Anybody order some whip cream?" I questioned, feeling a sly grin spread across my face. Hermione, who seemed to have temporarily forgotten me, placed down her book, the one I was once again getting used to seeing, and returned the sly gesture.

"I was just about to begin without you." she informed only half jokingly as I strode over to the bed. I plopped down next to her, rolled to face her, and puckered out my lips, silently demanding my reward for retrieving the treasure. Quoting Ron Weasley, my best friend and old chum, receiving free kisses was one of the finest perks of being married, right up there with actual bed play. He should know, as he'd already been married three times. Hermione readily complied, pressing her soft lips with my own slightly chapped ones. I leaned towards her, deepening the kiss just because I had searched ever-so hard for that chocolate. Just as I was about to pull my infamous slip-of-the-tongue move, she pulled away, despite my usual groans of protest, and rested her forehead upon mine as she took both the whip cream and chocolate syrup from my grasp. My sly grin had mysteriously been replaced by my usual goofy, lopsided one somehow. I wonder how she does that...

"Well, now that I've had a sample taste of my treat," I started, smacking my lips together, tasting the sweet aftertaste her lips had left on mine, "I want the main course. Now." I added with a sense of urgency, pulling her closer to me. According to Ron, you could never have enough bodily contact in bed, well, until it got you into trouble and you end up being forced to marry three times...But that wasn't the case for me.

"You'll get it, as soon as I get my share first..." she chortled softly, petting- no, stroking the front of my chest fondly. I suddenly found myself wondering if the Monkey-see-Monkey-do rule applied for this occasion.

"What? This is the kind of experience we should share, don't you think?" She detected my uneasiness

"Well, I would Darling, it’s just that," she responded as she began eyeing me deviously, shaking up the whip cream can at a deliberately slow speed. "You always hog everything for yourself-"

"Oh, I do not!" I protested.

"Oh really? What about the time just last week, in the kitchen, you remember, on the table-"

"I couldn't help it-"

"-Or the time at my parent's house-oh Daddy didn't like the idea of that at all...-"

I bet he didn’t. That cantankerous old bat lived for the mere reason to torture, humiliate, and to flash his ancient and most lethal weapons at me…Of course, Hermione wasn’t aware of this and if she was, she did a damn good job of hiding it. It seemed that David Adonis Granger (The II or III, who knows, I’m no good with lineage and all that rubbish) despised me from the first moment I stepped foot in his house- with Hermione’s arms clutched around me. Or maybe it was the time I stayed with the Grangers for the summer and crashed into his car while on a romantic moonlit ride on a dilapidated flying motorcycle with his young, virginal daughter-Moving on though.

"He doesn't like the idea of me-" I reminded her briskly.

"Or on the stairs or on our wedding night in fact-"

"Okay, I get it!" I interrupted her, going into a little pout making Hermione giggle shortly at my childish behavior. Maybe Harmony did get some of her worse habits from me...

"...Don't get upset! It's nothing personal-"

"How 'bout we make a deal? I give you something really nice..."

"Like what?" she asked skeptically.

"Er...like...um...my...banana?" I offered. Oh yes, I was sacrificing the most precious, sacred part of a male’s…Banana Split. Bet you weren’t expecting that, eh? Oh yes, our intentions weren’t as lewd, as risqué as some may have thought (Though I wouldn’t mind it one bit…). This explains the extra precaution and stealth one should always take into account when both chocolate and ice cream are present within a 1-mile radius of a three-year-old, more specially, Harmony Potter.

"Ah, my favorite," Hermione wet her lips in the slightest manner, gazing at me with a hungry look about her.

"I can tell," I smirked at her, "So do we have ourselves a deal?" I asked, dangling my banana teasingly in front of her face.

"Hmm..." she contemplated for a while, "Mr. Potter, you better remove that shirt, things may get a a tad bit messy." She warned.

I grinned maniacally with glee.

Right then and there, right as I was in mid pullover, the door flew open and Bam, the romance was stomped, yet again...Ah...the story of a couple with a kid.

"Mummy, Daddy! I had a-I had- a bad dream!" Little Harmony wailed as she scrambled into our bedroom, flailing her tiny arms dramatically with her raggedy stuffed puppy doll, Chip, in tow.

I was swift to shield the particularly large (sufficient enough for two) dish of ice cream banana splits from her sight as Hermione opened her arms to the child as she clambered onto the bed sniffling miserably.

"Oh darling, come now, nothing for you to fear here..." I muttered, feeling slightly sore. I know it wasn't really Harmony's fault my treat would probably be forgotten and devoured by my wife after I'd fallen asleep and then fall into the category of "things I probably dreamed up" over breakfast, but hey, she ruined my treat! This would've been the first drop of ice cream I would be allowed to touch, ever since Hermione started hoarding away the stuff by the gallons. But of course it wasn't her fault either, it was the cravings, she always claimed. She calls them cravings, I call them Annoyingly-tempting-snacks-and-sweets-that-I-must-go-out-of-my-way-to-get-at-usually-ungodly-hours-that-are-perfectly-good-for-Hermione-but-will-"Ruin my teeth"-according to her. Damn I hate those cravings...

"I'm not scared!" She corrected me sharply, turning her tearstained face towards me. Her beautiful emerald eyes are brimming with tears, making my heart swell up with pity and forget about the ice cream as I engulfed her in an embrace as well.

"Chip was scared. Not me. I'm a big girl!" she defended herself, pointing at her raggedy puppy doll which was staring up at Hermione with its remaining, nearly chewed off eye.

"Poor Chip," Hermione started, playing along with Harmony's little game. "This is the third nightmare he's had this week. Do you reckon it’s those scary movies a certain somebody-"

For some mysterious reason her eyes then flashed momentarily to me.

"-Let him watch?"

It's not like I forced Harmony to watch The Twenty-first and Most Likely Not the Final Return of Michael Myers...and after the third sequel, the movie stops getting scary anyway, this had just been two hours of stupid hormone influenced preteens frolicking across the screen screaming their heads off as this was the edited version. It was actually giving a good lesson: Stay Daddy's little girl forever and don't become a stupid hormone influenced preteen. I liked the idea of that.

Harmony nodded solemnly as she attempted to peer over my shoulder to try to catch a glimpse of what I was hiding.

"Er, sounds as if somebody wanted to spend the night..." I started to say before Harmony let out a gasp of awe.

"Chocy!" she stated, holding the bottle of chocolate syrup in her hands.

"Harmony, no its way too late for you to have any ice cream-" I said, trying to have a shred of authority though I knew in the end I would be the only person in the room with barely a spoon to lick at.

"Ice cream?" she questioned with an endearing grin on her face, one she’d knew I’d never be able to say ‘no’ to. "Ice cream!"

"Sadly Darling," Hermione said to me as she took the time to spray the foamy white substance over the dish of ice cream from my not-so-secret stash, "you couldn't keep a secret if your life depended on it..."

"Or my food supply..."

"Mummy, I think Chip wants some ice cream. Uh huh, he said so!" Harmony chirped. I couldn't help but smile at her.

"Does Chip plan on staying the night in Mummy and Daddy’s bed again?" Hermione questioned as she spooned a taste of the oozing chocolate ice cream to Harmony.

"Yes...But..."

"But what?"

"Chip don't like sleeping without Me." she finished sweetly.

“Chip ‘doesn’t’ like sleeping without you, you mean,” Hermione corrected, always being a nag whenever proper grammar was concerned.

Chip was beginning to give more demands than our real dog...

"Oh, I think I understand," Hermione replied winking.

"Chip's just a scardey dog. I'm not. I'm a big girl! A big sister,." she reminded us proudly, motioning to the obvious bulge in Hermione's usually flat stomach.

Ahhh...of course. How could I forget with all the sudden morning sickness and those darn cravings? Did I mention I hated the cravings? After three years of frosting our first bun, we had another in the oven. I can't say I was less than surprised to find out, but it was much better from when I first found out about-

"Harmony, what have I told you about spraying whip cream up your nose!" Hermione warned, removing the spray can from the curious three year old's grasp.

I remember like it was just yesterday, I do...Surprisingly, it all started with a fish...

Time to get nostalgic.

July 2005

I gazed longingly out the office window, watching the merry birds twitter about as I leaned back into the couch I was sprawled across. It was Friday morning, but instead of being filled with the usual glee of anticipating the upcoming weekend, I was feeling everything but that. First of all I was having these reoccurring dreams -no, nightmares, Hermione was acting very odd, rather disconnected lately and I feared her health was in the worse for nearly every morning or after every meal she would head straight for the toilets to retch it all up. I thought for once her father was right and my horrible cooking had set off something unnatural in her organs, but I'd never tell him that.

Plus, there was my approaching birthday. Somewhere between being stuck at nineteen and twenty two, birthdays began seeming unnecessary. From that point on, birthdays just started getting bothersome as they passed me by, leaving me pining over old photo albums of the grand old Hogwarts days.

Yes, I just referred to my Hogwarts days, days when Voldemort freely roamed the wizarding world and found it necessary to attempt to kill me every year, as grand.

Now, I didn't see myself as going on 25, I saw 5 years until I fall in the unspeakable abyss of 30. How old do you have to be to experience a midlife crisis anyway?

Really didn't want to think of that for some reason. Suddenly, somebody cleared their throat, disturbing my worrisome thoughts.

"Harry, I-"

"Sorry,” I apologized quickly, blinking dully, I continued. “Let me continue. As I was saying-"

"Harry-"

"The dream always starts with me, just me rowing down this, this, canal, I think. Everything's running smoothly though it’s all in black and white for a while- like those old muggle shows on the telly-”

“-Whatsa telly?” The man opposite questioned me, looking genuinely curious. I forget that most pureblood wizards aren’t too familiar with terms like ‘television’ and ‘fellytone -er…I mean, telephone’.

“Er…kind of a…um, box with moving pictures,” I grasped desperately for a short but sweet answer that wouldn’t lead into an intricate hour long conversation on the science and history of a television. It had ended up that way several of times with Mr. Weasley…

“A photo album, you mean?” The other wizard inquired further, pressing the subject.

“We don’t really have much time left, now do we? Anyway, I’m in a boat and suddenly I crash into shore and suddenly there's color. What do you make of that?"

"Well, I-” He stroked his chin in a manner of which professionals did to make their patients seem sicker than they really are just to justify their actions when they tagged on an extra seventy-five sickles to your medication bill (nothing a home-made Prozac and some good quidditch time couldn’t heal).

"Let me finish. On shore, I spot- get this -Hermione sitting along the rocks with two fishing rods, which is odd because the other times she's in my dreams she's only got one rod and it isn’t for fishing if you uh, catch my drift-" I waggled my eyebrows the way you do when there’s an inside joke between two old friends. He looked back at me with a blank expression on his face, obviously not getting it.

"Ahhh...Ew, aren’t you, uh, a little old to be having wet dreams?"

Lucky for him, I chose to ignore him, that worthless sod…

"Yeah, so, she grins at me and hands me one of the rods, like she's been waiting for me. I think that because she says, 'I've been waiting for you Harry.' then she tells me how great I am for being glad for her, for us. The thing that freaks me out is when I turn to ask her what in the blazes is she talking about, a fish tugs on my line! Suddenly it lunges out of the water like its flying or something! This thing was huge! I mean, it was as big as a person at least. Anyway I scream my head off while Hermione just smiles at it as it swallows my head," I finished, gingerly massaging my temples. I felt an oncoming headache…

"...Swallows your head?"

"Yes, yes it swallows my head. Do you think that's...odd, or is it just me?" I questioned, trying not to look scared out of my wits.

"...How long've you been having these dreams?"

"About a month already,"

"And it ate your head, the fish?" He attempted to clarify again.

I sighed exasperatedly as I rose from the couch.

"You're not really helping at all, Neville," I informed him, getting a bit testy.

"Well, I told you to go to a real psychiatrist ages ago! It’s not my fault you continue to go along with this little fantasy just because I have the couch in my office..."

I glanced back at the chair I had previously occupied. Yup, he was right. It was one of the lay down couches you only spotted in psychiatrist offices. He had me there.

"Well, what do you make of the dream anyway?" I said, grasping for a different opinion on my dream. I had only told two other people of it, Hermione, of course, and Ron. They both came up with the same deduction; my subconscious was disagreeing with my seafood loving stomach. Result, no more fish sticks or fish and chips for me...

"I believe...that Hermione...wants you to...go fishing or something of that sort...?" Neville offered sheepishly as he twiddled with his wand absentmindedly.

"Nah, ‘Mione hates fish...With a passion, in fact, I've only seen her eat it about three times, two of those times her father was breathing down my neck so she may have had pork that I just mistaken for fish-"

Suddenly, the door to the office flew open, and a head of full obsidian hair poked halfway inside the doorway. Immediately, Neville and I straightened up and tried to look slightly more professional in case the visitor happened to be Tonks, one of our 'superiors' now, with a sudden hair change. Of course, today was a slow day around the auror department at the ministry of magic so most of the workers we're slacking off, not just us. And of course it wasn't Tonks that had intruded my session with my "psychiatrist", but Matthew, a fellow employee a few years my senior. His amethyst eyes glinted mischievously as his rugged face twisted into a lopsided grin.

"I hear anyone mention lunch?" he questioned, grin unfaltering. Quite a bit of a glutton, he was.

"No," I said shortly, not really feeling like treating this guy to lunch for the third time this week. But Neville just had to open his mouth...

"Harry was just talking about his dream and discussing how he's so intimidated by his father-in-law that he has no sense of taste or proper observation in his presence-" he explained.

"He does not intimidate me!" I defended myself. Okay, maybe I was a bit...shaken around the guy but how would you behave around the man that locked you and him together in his antique weapons (what normal person has that?!) room two nights before your wedding with his daughter?

"Oh really," Matt started smugly, "Great, because he's here to take his precious son-in-law out for a bite to eat-"

I tried to look brave but my scared-pissless expression deceived me.

"Eep!" I squealed, resembling the exact tone and pitch of a little girl’s.

Neville tried his best to hide a smirk from me while Matt let his unconcealed peals of raucous laughter loose. He stood in the doorway slapping his knee, cackling like a wounded hyena. I couldn't help but to get he was joking...

"Yeah, yeah, are you gonna stick around here torturing my ears with the likes of your hideous laugh or do you actually have a purpose for visiting this time besides the fact that you want a free lunch?" I questioned, trying not to sound to cross.

"Any way with me, I'm starving!" Neville informed me, slapping me on the back. It’s funny how my friends saw me as their personal bank.

"Actually, someone really is here to take you out." Matt said sincerely. That's the only time this guy was serious is when food was the subject matter.

"Really? It’s about time I actually got some-" I was cut off by a tight grasping around my right ankle.

"Ack! Get it off me- get it-" I squealed yet again, this time flailing my arms about somewhat hysterically. As you can see, I was a bit surprised.

"Zabba Oohie Har-har!" the creature gurgled out merrily. And there was only one thing-no, person, that called me Zabba Oohie Har-Har.

I glanced down at the tittering blob of flaming hair. Flaming hair, sign one. I was positive this was a Weasley however when I spotted sign two, a face full of freckles. The little child extended his arms towards me, motioning for me to hoist him up so he could poke my eye as usual.

"Hello, there Ronnie! He's gotten big since the last time I saw him." Neville announced over my shoulder while the thing went on with his way of torturing me.

"As I was saying, a certain Ron Weasley, here for you Harry." Matt finished, cracking the door a bit more so Neville and I could catch a glimpse of my good buddy outside, leaning casually against Rosemary, Neville’s ditzy blonde secretary’s desk, laughing it up in a flirty fashion. Did this guy ever stop? No, and he wasn't going to, I concluded as Rosemary slipped him a bit of parchment with hasty scribbling on it, probably her number, which Ron accepted heedlessly. I laughed silently to myself, as did Neville. Ron had just been divorced for the second time by his wife of a couple of months, Lavender Weasly -no, Brown. You'd think he'd show a tad bit more remorse.

"Wom!" Little Ron Jr. peeped, finally paused from rumpling my hair in a worst state to call for his father. I was actually surprised at the development, Ron had managed to get Ron Jr. to call him something besides "Bastawd," a development from staying to long with Lavender, Ron had concluded.

Ron turned from Rosemary and flashed us a boastful smirk, waving Rosemary’s number in front of his face as he walked closer. No reason to brag, considering most everybody in the office had their rounds with the girl, including some of the women...Er, not me though, I'm married, though I do believe she made an appearance at my bachelor party.

"Hey guys!" Ron greeted in his normal cheerful tone. I noticed he wasn't clad in his bedraggled tangerine practice Quidditch uniform as usual.

"Ron, off from work I suppose?" Neville stated, noticing the same as I.

"Yeah, we're in off season finally, can you believe it?" he expressed relief.

I couldn't help but snort.

"Er, Ron, the Chudley Canons are always off season." I informed him.

"You think that's why they can't play a decent game?" Matt questioned somewhat genuinely, sending me and Neville in a fit of chuckles.

"Hey! What about that game we won the Windborne Wasps 170 to 165?" Ron defended stubbornly.

"Oh yeah, quite a game that was. When was it- summer of 1957 you say?" Matthew continued heckling.

"Oh, I remember my Grandmother telling me about that game loads of times when I was a lad!" Neville said gingerly, not wanting to damage Ron’s ultra-sensitive ego. I noticed Ron was beginning to give into a childish pout, making him look a bit like little Ronnie when I refused to give him some sweets to stick to my hair.

"Oh Ron, the canons may suck but they do have the best Keeper in the league!" I said, feeling my free lunch slip away along with Ron's ego.

"Humph. Thanks Harry. So where do you think we should head off for lunch..." Ron said emphasizing 'we' as him and I only.

"Ooh, what about that nice place on the corner?" Matt offered.

"The pizza shack?" Neville queried. “No, no, it smells suspiciously like butcher’s shop in there,” he pointed out, crinkling his nose in disgust at the memory.

"Nah, that pub, Ron could treat us to food and a pint."

"Us? Who's us?" Ron questioned.

"Well I'm in the mood for Chinese food-"

"Who's us? I don’t recall inviting you freeloaders," Ron pointed out, furrowing his brow in frustration of being ignored.

"But I suggest we go to that new cafe not so far from here. It's only been open for about three days now and I've only sampled there twice!" Matt exclaimed outraged.

"Bastawd, Bastawd." Ron Jr. chirped, pulling at Ron's robes.

"Who the-"

"What type of food do they have there?" I questioned evenly, feeling Ron’s rising temper.

"All sorts, it’s a cafe."

"Sounds good." I confirmed. "Come Ron, the little one's hungry." I stated, urging my friend towards the door.

"Let me get my cloak," Matthew started as he trailed down the hall.

"...Who the hell invited you two?!"

-Meanwhile in Daily Prophet Headquarter-

Hermione knocked impatiently on the side of the cubicle with the silver plaque reading Junior Photographer posted on it. After a few moments of silence, she decided to have a peek inside.

"...Colin! Colin, where are you?" Hermione called out, peering into the deserted cubicle. There were scattered photographs of various things everywhere on the floor, walls, and his empty desk, signifying that he had been there recently.

Receiving no response, Hermione continued to slink down the hallway, as if afraid of being detected. Her efforts were squalled soon anyway.

"Okay, all I gotta do is hurry, get my bag, a spli-" she began muttering to herself.

"Hey Herms," a female voice cut through her own, slightly startling her.

"Eep!" Hermione squealed girlishly as she jumped up slightly causing her companion to become startled as well.

"Ginny!" Hermione breathed, relief evident in her voice.

"Hermione!" Ginny said in return, cocking an eyebrow at her friend’s odd behavior.

"...Er, fancy meeting you here, what brings you around these parts...?" Hermione tried to pull off casually, failing miserably considering the fact that she should know good and well what Ginny was doing there because she worked there along with her, Hermione being one of the junior executive editors and Ginny being a writer for the opinions page of the Daily Prophet.

"Well, I was feeling a tad bit puckish and I decided to search for breadcrumbs in the halls..." she replied sarcastically, shaking her head, "What's got you creeping around here like a thief in the night?"

"Er, I'm...looking for...the er, loos," Hermione made up after a brief silence causing Ginny to deliver a penetrating stare at her as if she had lost her mind, which she was pretty sure she did as she'd noticed Hermione acting a bit...off lately.

"You know," Ginny started, giving a knowing grin to Hermione, "Those long pauses and 'Er's' really throw off your pathetic inconspicuous act."

Hermione gave an exasperated sigh, knowing she couldn't fool her good friend.

"You’ve got me..."

"I ever lost you?" Ginny quipped, cracking an endearing grin.

"I was looking for Colin," Hermione started to say, silently questioning Ginny.

"Don't look at me. I've got no idea where he's gone of to. I can't keep track on him unless he's in bed..." she started to say before Hermione cut her off, not wanting to pry in any of Ginny’s more intimate details (Who would when it’s concerning Colin Creevy?)

"-Because, I’ve been walking about telling everybody that if somebody comes up to them asking of my whereabouts to tell them I've been hit by a-"

"-Fairly small lorry and that you'd be in the hospital until next month. I know. I got the memo," Ginny finished for her, grinning broadly. "Let me guess, monthly lunch date with your older sister?"

"...Yes," Hermione mumbled grudgingly as if even admitting it was the worst chore in the world you could sentence a person to. As far as she was concerned, it was, seeing as her only sister, Grace was by far the most insufferable person Hermione knew outside the house of Slytherin. And seeing as Hermione had experienced previous encounters with people like Rita Skeeter, Delores Umbridge, and Cho Chang (All of whom weren’t in Slyhterin as far as she knew), that was really saying something.

This monthly lunch date was a stupidly sadistic thing her parents, meaning only her father, set up. In order to still go recognized as a valued and active member of the family (not being talked about among gossipy aunts) after marrying ‘a-car-wrecking-ragamuffin-that-gets-joy-of-swiping-perfect-little-daughters-from-there-loving-fathers-that-worked-so-hard-for-them’ or Harry (as Mr. Granger put it), she would have to "rekindle" her relationship with her sister (which had disintegrated by the time Hermione learned to talk) because it broke his heart to see his baby girl stray so far from her family by marrying and devoting most of her time to ‘a-car-wrecking-ragamuffin-that-gets-joy-of-swiping-perfect-little-daughters-from-there-loving-fathers-that-worked-so-hard-for-them’ or Harry. In doing this she agreed to go on an outing with her wretched sister at least once a month, suffering through each despicable, mind0numbing moment of it, the end.

"Sad, girl. Just sad," Ginny tutted shaking her head, making Hermione's snap up.

"You know how Grace is! She's so...blah, and whiny, and bitter, and-" Hermione began to rant on not noticing the approaching couple behind them.

"-And right behind you," Ginny finished through barred teeth, turning Hermione's attention to down the hall, where Colin was strolling down the corridor, laughing it up with a slender, curly flaxen haired woman whose overall facial and body structure bore a remarkable resemblance to Hermione’s. The woman’s pale blue eyes glinted as she laughed heartily at one of Colin's corny jokes.

Hermione hissed a curse out before attempting to push the resentful expression off of her face and replace it with a false joyful one.

"Grace!" she tried to great merrily, extending her arms towards her sister as they approached.

"My, my, little sister...it seems as if you managed to loose just a tad bit of weight since last month! Or, you've discovered the magic of vertical stripes..." Grace uttered in a way that could be taken as half compliment or an insult. Just for the concern of making a scene, Hermione chose to take it as a compliment.

"And you...you look...er, the same," Hermione tried to return the ‘compliment’.

"Isn't that funny? I was just about to read the memo you sent, Hermione, right when Grace came knocking at my cubicle, Colin said cheerfully, putting his arm around Ginny as both Hermione and Ginny threw him venomous glares that could kill.

"Yes, it seems everyone in this building seems to believe you we're hit by a lorry! Isn't that funny?" Grace said, slapping her thigh.

"Yes, just to die for..." Ginny said gravely as she pinched Colin's hand which had become comfortable around her shoulder, making him yelp like an injured animal.

"Well, come along now dear, I've got to make t back to the salon-"

"I can't go!" Hermione stated swiftly. "I er, have been having stomach problems!" she said truthfully, "I couldn't even keep down my breakfast this morning!" she added hastily, noting Grace's skeptical looks.

"Oh come now, just because you couldn't keep down Harvey's-"

"Harry," Hermione corrected automatically. After a near five years of being married to Harry, she wondered how certain of her family members (Meaning her father and Grace in particular) still managed to let something as simple as ‘Harry’ slip from their minds constantly. Hermione hadn’t considered it an issue until her father had over three-hundred invitations printed stating ‘You are cordially invited to the glorious wedding of Hermione Jane Granger and Harvey Julian Porter’. Luckily, Mrs. Granger, who, unlike her husband, had taken to Harry immediately like Hermione’s brothers, was happy enough to hunt down the few owls that had already been sent out and fix the mistake all the while chastising her husband incessantly.

"Just because you can’t choke down Harry’s toxic food doesn't mean you'll choke up lunch as well. Come, we're going to that new cafe I spotted on the way here." Grace stated firmly, pulling at Hermione's sleeve.

"But, I, er, promised I would-er, go out with Ginny!" Hermione protested, shoving the shorter female up to the front. “She came here all the way from Diagon Alley to have lunch!”

"Well, I suppose you can bring her along then. I've been trying to snag her boyfriend for at least a month now; it’s the least I can do for the poor thing, buying her lunch..." Grace said indifferently, simply shrugging off the fact that both Ginny and Colin (blushing furiously) were present.

"Ahem! I'm right here, you know!" Ginny hollered at her as Colin scrambled to get out of her sight and away from her wrath.

Grace turned back and grinned in a sweet manner. A sickeningly sweet way that made Hermione’s insides quiver uncomfortably.

"Why Ginny Dear, you've lost a bit of weight as well! I’d hardly recognize you if it wasn’t for you tatty red hair!" Ginny, not being as tolerant of Grace as Hermione had grown to be (with much experience over the years), took this comment as an insult.

"Let's be off then," Hermione stated briskly, grabbing the back of Ginny's cloak before she lunged at Grace, escorting them both off the premises.

2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters, spells and pretty much anything associated with it that you recognize, m'kay?

Author's Note: I decided to split the first chapter in half mainly because editing it all at once made my eyes burn. So, that'd explain why this chapter seems a bit on the short side. But never fear, more chapters are well on their way.

Nine More Months To Go

-At the Café-

"I want the window seat!" Matthew announced as the four -no, five of us, including Ron Jr., stood in front of the table. Ron and Matthew had been bickering constantly ever since we left the office and I was beginning to get sick of them. Neville reckons it's because their so much alike…The waitress gave me and Neville sympathetic looks before she left us to deal with the annoying berks ourselves.

"I'm paying for this meal, I get the window seat!" Ron demanded stubbornly.

"Wibbow Bastawd! Wibbow Bastawd!" Little Ronnie chanted merrily as he rearranged the salt shakers on the table.

"Er, guys, we're outside, does it really matter who gets the window seat?!" Neville finally broke up their dispute.

"Idiots," I muttered while grinning slightly as I picked up my menu.

"Hmmm..." Ron muttered on after finally joining the rest of us at the table, long after Matt had plopped down in the seat across from Neville and was studying his menu intently.

"Ooh that looks good," Matt said referring to the table next to us where an attractive young woman was enthusiastically devouring a tower of oozing nachos slathered in cheese and chopped bell peppers.

"…The nachos or the girl?" Ron replied, somewhat in a daze. “Because they both resemble somebody's sloppy seconds to me,”

"Honestly Weasley,” Matt thrust down his menu as he turned his attention to Ron, “ You seriously have a one-track mind -oh hey, that guy's got pastrami special!" Matt began, thinking about his stomach once more.

"I'm positively starving!" Neville announced as he surveyed hi own menu.

I on the other hand knew what I was in the mood for...

"I think I'll start off with some...Salmon," I thought aloud, making all three of them turn to me and stare inquisitively.

"...What?"

"So I suppose you've stop having those ridiculous dreams then?" Ron questioned skeptically, raising an eyebrow in my direction.

"No," Neville answered for me, "He's just planning to vent his anger on all the fishy kind for haunting his dreams."

"Ah...very practical," Ron stated solemnly. I couldn't help but noticed Matt looked to be in the dark.

"What dreams?"

-Meanwhile-

"Would you ladies prefer the lounge or the patio?" the hostess asked a simple question that sent Grace and Ginny into an unraveling dispute.

"I want the lounge," Ginny said with an air of finality, silently daring one of them to disagree with her.

“Too much smoke isn't good for my complexion!” Grace noted, crinkling her nose in mild disgust, “We'll take the patio,” she clarified, turning towards the hostess.

"Those birds will never allow us to have a decent meal in peace-" Ginny attacked immediately, giving just reasons to want to eat indoors.

"I'm the one paying for this-" Grace retorted sharply as Hermione cut in between the two of them.

"Which is closer to the loo?" Hermione cut in.

"The lounge Miss." the hostess answered cheerfully, leading them to a booth right next to the window out looking the people on the patio tables.

"We'll take it," Hermione confirmed, looking a bit peaky at the sight of the food at the passing tables.

As they sat down, Grace glared at Hermione at Hermione, piercing her with spiteful looks after they had ordered their meals.

"What's with you? Picking the lounge..."

“Well, would you rather me loose my lunch all over you then?" Hermione replied bitterly, spreading her napkin across her lap as Ginny observed her, obviously concerned.

"You really don't look so well Hermione," Ginny said slowly, concern evident in her voice.

"I-I'm just not that well, that's all." Hermione replied shakily.

Ginny noted she looked paler than usual.

"I think its stress. You worry yourself over the stupidest things sometimes," Grace said offhandedly as she took out her makeup kit and began to apply mascara. Ginny silently willed that there be a sudden earthquake or something that would cause her to poke out her eye because of her non-concerned attitude towards her sister.

"I don't think it is," Hermione stated firmly, her penetrating stare on Grace unwavering.

"What's up then, trouble in paradise?" Grace asked suddenly fully attentive as if she would simply adore the idea of there being marital issues between Hermione and Harry. As if.

"What?"

"Between you and Herman-"

"Harry," Hermione snapped suddenly, “His name is Harry, alright? We've been married for years now- you'd think you would at least give him the time of day-”

"No need to get stroppy with me,” Grace sniffed indignantly. “I was just noting that I haven't seen him around you lately and he's usually so protective over his little 'Mione." Grace finished in a bittersweet tone.

"That's nonsense-" Ginny started to say.

"Well...There is something I've been wanting to...discuss with him..." Hermione began to say with an unsettled look about her.

"Ooh, secrets!" Grace said as Ginny's foot collided with her shin causing her to curse loudly, in a not so ladylike manner.

"Er, I mean. You know what they say, 'Nothing lasts forever...'." she said insensitively making Hermione gasp in horror at the idea.

"No! I don't want to break it off with him, I love him-"

"Yup, I used to say the same with Tom..." Grace pointed out dismissively, waving her hand.

"-Until he caught you cheating and you ended up getting sacked?" Ginny asked hopefully with a malicious glint present in her eyes.

"-And he wouldn't want to leave me...at least...not yet, I'm sure..." Hermione said as her eyes slowly began to glisten with tears.

"Er, oh look at these curtains-" Grace began to change the subject, earning a swift kick from Ginny's direction yet again.

"Why would you say that, Herms?" Ginny asked tenderly, making Grace roll her eyes and utter a derisive noise.

"I mean- Yes-please-tell-us-as-we-care-so-much." Grace said stiffly, mentally gagging herself for the forced display of sisterly love.

"Do you guys...suppose Harry -hypothetically speaking, of course- do you guys think he would...er, enjoy children?" Hermione managed to get out meekly glancing between the two of them, desperate for a response.

"..."

"..."

"..."

There was -daresay- a pregnant silence that surrounded the trio momentarily as Grace and Ginny gaped dully at Hermione while Hermione searched both of their empty expressions in hope of some implication of a response. Suddenly, Ginny gave sort of a strangled chortle before inquiring if she heard correctly.

"...Are you saying what I think-" Ginny began to say before their waiter approached their table presenting three dishes.

"Aright then, ladies. I remember you had the Caesar salad," he stated placing a dish in front of Grace who had taken up smiling seductively and twirling her hair around her finger, a habit she had went she went into "slut mode" as most of her siblings had put it.

"And tell me, which one of you two ordered the...Fish filet?" he questioned eyeing Hermione and Ginny, raising his bushy eyebrows suggestively as he peered between the three of them.

"Fish?” Ginny looked puzzled as she assumed the waiter had made a mistake seeing as Hermione made it very clear that she detested fish or any type of seafood whatsoever. “I had the chicken sandwich-"

"...That'd be me," Hermione spoke up slowly, surprising both Grace and Ginny who had been to busy arguing to noticing when she ordered.

Grace and Ginny turned quizzically to Hermione, looking for an explanation.

"...What? I just had the strangest craving for seafood today!" she said defensively, picking up her utensils. She hadn't realized how famished she really was until just then when the platter of steaming fish filet had been placed in front of her.

"...Ooh, wait 'till I tell Daddy he's gonna be a Grandpa..." Grace squealed in a deviously excited way, drumming her fingers together in quite a sinister fashion.

"Grace!" Hermione hissed, as if she half expected her father to emerge from the booth behind them and begin chastising her.

"Exactly how far along are you-"

"I'm not! I mean -I'm not sure -I- argh! I can't even tell if I'm-I'm-" Hermione stuttered, burying her face with her hands, sounding exhausted all of a sudden.

"Go ahead and say it,” Ginny urged, an unwavering smirk plastered on her freckled face.

"Shut up, you guys, I-I gotta go." Hermione said, hoisting herself up from her seat abruptly, nearly knocking over her glass of water in the process.

"Let me come with you baby sis. You need help in your fragile state," Grace said gleefully. No doubt, this would be the highlight of her day, well, that is, until she told their father.

"I-am-not-fragile!" Hermione shouted, gaining the attention of a group of people passing by. Grace simply ignored her and grabbed her arm and began to steer her through the crowd.

"Move it people, woman with child coming through!"

"Grace!"

-A While later-

"...It ate your head? The fish you mean, not Hermione, right?" Matt asked, a smile was creeping onto his face.

"Why does everyone ask that?"

"Sorry Harry, it's just that-" he was cut off by his own cackles, the git. “What kind of a nut are you to be having dreams like that?” He managed to get out before dissolving into another fit of snorts. It must've been a contagious sort of thing because Ron Jr. was caught in a fit of boyish giggles of his own. Either that or Ron Jr. was a bit touched in the head-just like his father (Oh, Lavender wouldn't like that at all…)

"Oh-Oh, Sod off!” I retorted lamely, crossing my arms immaturely. Who could blame me? I could've had a serious psychological trauma-issue whatsit from fish because of this and all that that git could do was laugh.

"You have the nerve to sit here and eat that Salmon after a dream like that?" He questioned incredulously, finally sobering up after like what, a century of laughing his pathetic arse off?

"What do you think it means?" I asked helplessly.

"Um...” He bit his lip pensively and extended his fork sideways towards my plate, “Stop eating fish?”

"I've tried that, Matt!"

"Well," Ron started, stroking his rusty goatee, trying to look wiser (and failing miserably, I might add), "Maybe you shouldn't go fishing with Hermione anymore since it's obviously traumatizing you,"

"Aw Gemmy!" Ron Jr. squealed out as he bounced up and down in Ron's lap, flailing his short arms wildly at the window.

"Gin's not here, Ronnie," Ron retold the child, rolling his periwinkle eyes which matched the child's, I noted. No wonder why Lavender couldn't bare to look at the kid for more than a week at a time, he looked just like Ron.

"But Ron, we don't even go fishing, that's the thing! In fact, Hermione doesn't even like fish..."

"That's odd. Why would Hermione be having the steamed fish filet platter if she doesn't like fish?" Neville questioned clearly puzzled, causing all of us to stare at him as if he was loosing it.

"What are you going on about?" Matt asked him, perking up at the mention of one of his regular meal choices.

"Aw Gemmy!" Ronnie wailed yet again, struggling to be released fro Ron's tight grasp around his waist. We all turned to where he was flailing his arms madly at the window not so far from us. Sure enough, there on the other side of the window was Ginny or `Aw Gemmy', alongside Grace, Hermione's insufferable sister, and Hermione herself. And sure enough, she was munching on a piece of breaded fish, though for some reason her face seemed...wet? Yes, wet, as if she had been crying.

"Hmm..." Ron said looking down at the struggling child. "I always said the kid had more sense than I ever would..."

And we never doubted him.

-~-~-~-~-

"So how far along are-"

"I'm not sure I'm- yet." Hermione sputtered testily. She seemed to have difficulties saying the word `pregnant', both Ginny and Grace noted, though Grace was the only one finding so much pleasure in her discomfort.

"So how far along do you think you are?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione retorted curtly, taking a hearty bite of the fish before her as Ginny stared on in amazement.

"So you and Harry have been shagging so frequently that you can't pinpoint the time of conception? How absolutely scandalous…" Grace questioned smirking at a Hermione who appeared as though she was mere seconds away from delivering a well deserved kick to her sister's jaw.

"You shouldn't say much when your company is armed with knives," Ginny warned her flatly, noting Hermione's radiating bitterness.

"Just how would I tell him though? We've been so happy! And it's not just a subject you drop on somebody as part of normal after dinner conversation. I can imagine it now, `Oh, hullo darling. How was work? Have you seen the Canons mention in the Prophet today? Oh yeah, there may be a new arrival on its way here in a matter of months so you might want to look out for that…' If I were-"

"Knocked up," Grace filled in the ominous blank.

"...I prefer pregnant-” Hermione dropped her fork and gasped audibly, “I said it," She announced breathlessly.

"Ha!" Grace said triumphantly, giving a satisfied smirk.

"If I were, I'd suppose just about everything would change; I'd have to take off from work-"

"As of that would kill you-"

"It would, believe me," Ginny whispered audibly across the table.

"-Not to mention how difficult they are to raise. What if the kid ended up hating me or something and-and-Harry runs off with that Rosemary trollop from his work or- what if the kid turns out to be a-a squib or something? Harry'd blame it on me because I'm a muggle born or some nonsense or the-" Hermione would've continued to rave but Ginny let a silencing hand hang in mid-air.

"-One, you're getting hysterical. Two, I've been gathering the information that Rosemary is actually a man in drag. Third of all, Harry has trouble blaming your moods on you; do you really think he'd blame the child's magical ability or lack thereof on you, especially since his own mother was a muggleborn? Come on now, get serious," Ginny stated rationally, looking at Hermione as if she were being ridiculous, which she was- A common trait Hermione'd get when nervous.

"...What the hell is a squib?" Grace questioned, clearly in the dark.

"But-" Hermione started, ignoring her sister, "If I were, how or where could I tell him? This is so hard, not being able to discuss something openly with Harry. I mean, we've known each other since we were eleven-”

"Why don't you tell him now?" Grace questioned, gazing out the window.

"Wha-?"

"Eep!"

"Aw Gemmy! Aw Gemmy!" a little red haired cheered as he traipsed over to the window, followed by two men, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.

"I have to go-" Hermione said shortly as they began to walk towards the door to them, only stopping as a hand flew out and grabbed a good portion of her sleeve, slowing her down. Hermione stared down at Ginny who was glaring at her incredulously as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Now?" Ginny hissed, looking up at Hermione expectantly.

"Yes, now! I-"

"You cannot avoid this Hermione!" Ginny warned, taking a firmer grip of her friend's blouse.

"I can sure as hell try, now can't I?" Hermione hissed to Ginny as she headed off towards the toilets yet again, this time taking her purse and cloak. Before the three were upon them Hermione poked her head around the corner once again.

"Grace, I know what you're thinking. If you tell Dad, I will kill you," was the last thing they heard followed by a sharp crack and Hermione was gone.

"...I do not believe her!" Ginny exclaimed to a very confused Harry and Ron as the arrived to their table.

-->

3. Chapter Three

Disclaimer- I don’t own Harry Potter! Anyway…I’m not really worth suing as I’ve only got a Starbucks card worth $15…and this really cool RHPS shirt but I guess I shouldn’t have told you I have that much…

Author’s Note: Here it is, the third chapter! You get to see more of the Grangers in this chapter (and for some reason, I feel that means more questions which I’d be happy to reply to in your reviews…just as I’ve been doing so far) So, read on and enjoy, Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! It motivates me to keep posting.

Nine More Months To Go

Chapter Three

“…I can’t believe this!” Hermione whimpered as she paced back and forth around the living room of the ‘modest’ house in Godric’s Hollow Harry had inherited from his parents upon turning seventeen, nearly eight years ago. After restoring and refurnishing the time-worn place Harry had proclaimed it the perfect place for them after they got married despite Hermione’s protests about it being too ample for just two people. This wouldn’t be an issue soon enough…

“Hermione-” Ginny started to say as she felt she had taken in enough of Hermione’s psychotic and for the most part neurotic ramblings and threats for one afternoon. However, before she could complete her statement Hermione silenced her with a hand.

“No, no, stop right there! I’ve got to think, and I can’t think with you blabbing on about nothing!” Hermione pointed out, well near hysterics.

“…Do you have to make everything so dramatic? Honestly, you’re overreacting,” Said Ginny through a mid yawn.

“Overre- Overreacting?! My husband probably thinks I’m even more a blithering lunatic then when he first met me, once the big-mouthed flaming tart known as my sister gets a hold of anybody in my family my Father will not only have a severe heart attack upon hearing the news that I am not only married but also I’m actually having sex with Harry-”

“Oh yes, call the press and the authorities- Hermione’s shagging Harry-Flippin’-Potter!” Ginny snorted snidely, in her bout of mock alarm, “They’ll certainly lock you up among the serial killers and rapist and throw away the key for that one,” Ginny could no longer contain her raucous giggles as Hermione fumed before her. “I’m sure you can always plea stark raving mad in court- you surely won’t have any trouble convincing the judge with the way you’re behaving,”

“Not to mention my father will probably go at any means to slaughter, slice, or shish-ka-bob us and then bring me back to life just so he can make me spend the rest of my years working as a skivvy under his roof where he will make me out to be as big a slut as Grace for all eternity, but no, it doesn’t stop there, you also seem sadistically keen to get me sacked for skipping out on so much work!” Hermione accused breathlessly, looking uncharacteristically pale.

“…Again with the overreacting. You should be glad that-that-what did you call her?”

“A big-mouthed flaming tart,” Hermione replied huffily as she continued to attempt to burn a skid mark in the carpet from her speed pacing.

“Yes, that, she’ll be the one breaking the news, not you. Also, what do you mean I’m trying to get you sacked? This is only your second day off in years! Plus, I doubt your father could shish-ka-bob you and plan to live for eternity,” Ginny responded logically, not even batting an eye. “Honestly, you make your father out to be this huge, sinister prat. He’s like an overgrown…poodle, who just growls and sputters and puts on a show when a certain somebody crosses his path,”

“…Why can’t you just leave me be?! Are you just staying here to torture me?” Hermione huffed out before she steeled in a child-like pout.

“You know what I want,” Ginny put plainly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“I said I’m not doing it!” Hermione shouted firmly, returning to her annoyingly obstinate streak before taking to the flight of stairs, a reluctant Ginny hot on her trail. Ginny stalked down the corridors, not bothering to run or startle the many portraits of their merry days at Hogwarts and Harry’s parents, due to the fact that the pictures wouldn’t hesitate to gossip to Harry if they had seen something peculiar…

Hermione didn’t look back as she dashed up the stairs easily, only pausing to open one of the many bedroom doors and swiftly shut it behind her. Ginny tried rattling the door knob, but after about a moment Ginny heard Hermione mumble a spell of some sort from the other side, causing her not to be able to do as much as touch the door without receiving an unpleasant shock to her system.

“It’s the only way,” Ginny pointed out, waving a shopping bag in front of the shut door.

“I won’t do it, and you can’t make me,” came Hermione’s muffled voice through the door.

“How much do you want to bet I can?” Ginny muttered deviously to herself.

“I’ll scream.” Hermione threatened as if her screaming could do any harm when the closest neighbors were over a mile away and to top it off, still at work, as it was only four P.M.

“…You make it sound as if I’m trying to make you murder somebody Herm! It’s just a simple test that will make things a bit…clearer for us,” Ginny tried to reason with her. Then it struck her, she would have to resort to coaxing… “You like tests, don’t you? Think of it this way, the test will either prove how very wrong you were so we can have something to laugh about years from now…” Ginny alleviated Hermione with such ease the door slowly but surely began to creak open. Hermione peered out of the crack with great caution as if expecting an attack.

“Really?” She whispered doubtingly, slowly thrusting the door open a bit more.

“-Or it can confirm your worst nightmare and you could end up being right about all that doomsday drivel-”

The door quickly slammed shut again in Ginny’s face, yet behind it she could make out distinct swearing mixed with a few dry sobs.

“Dammit, Hermione, why are-you-being-so-damn-difficult-and-emotional?!” Ginny growled out through clenched teeth, driving her balled up fist against the door with each word. “Where’s this so-called Gryffindor bravery I keep hearing about?” Ginny growled fiercely, clearly her wisely masked fiery temper was beginning to show it’s true colors.

“Well, that damn sorting hat should’ve thrown me in Ravenclaw with my fellow book-worms and cowards like it first intended to do!” Hermione spat in an equally livid state, “…-Hic-…I want…-hic- I want Harry…” Oh great, she had developed a case of hiccups through her hysterics.

“Well so do I, as I need somebody who’s not on the brink of a nervous spasm to converse with…”

Ginny sighed exasperatedly as she glared at the door, as if she would suddenly gain x-ray vision like one of those super-heroes featured in muggle comic books and be able to see Hermione scowling right back at her behind it.

“I’m leaving now,” She announced bitterly, caring not to carry on this ridiculous staring match behind closed doors any longer, “Let’s just hope that you’re just being stupid because I won’t be able to be around you for nine months knowing it’s the excess hormones making you act like a bloody-“

“I don’t care what you do!”

A few moments later Hermione detected a reoccurring noise through the door as if someone was whacking or pounding something extremely hard on the other end of the door followed by a series of distressed groans.

“…Ginny…” Hermione started curiously, “What’s that noise?”

“It’s just me banging my head against the wall out of an acute case of frustration,” Ginny replied nonchalantly. “Please, go back to sulking while I attempt to put one of use out of our misery,”

“…You sure? The sound seems much denser than a normal head…Don’t you hear it?”

“I can’t hear anything at this point,”

“Ginny,” Hermione slipped out of the bedroom and peered down at her rusty-haired companion who was, true to her word, indeed repeatedly banging her head against the wall out of frustration.

“-Stop it,” Hermione commanded sternly, restraining Ginny’s head from crashing into the wall by her hair as Ginny looked up at her smugly.

“Well, it’s nice to see you do care about me-”

“-You’ll make a dent in the wall if you keep doing that. I can’t have that to add to my list of issues now, can I?” Hermione continued in mock concern.

“Real sensitive,” Ginny mumbled with her voice positively drenched in sarcasm.

“That’s me for sure,” responded Hermione in a bland tone.

“Now that you’ve stop acting like a baby,”

“Please don’t mention that term right now,” Hermione sighed exasperatedly, placing a hand atop of her forehead as if it ached.

“Get used to it baby,” Ginny teased in a gallant tone, tossing Hermione a smirk.

“Stop it,” Hermione snapped once more, cutting Ginny an icy glare.

“I’m just trying to fill the pregnant silence,” Ginny did her best to make it appear as an innocent choice of words, though Hermione saw that Ginny was clearly getting her share of laughs teasing and prodding her.

“Ginny,”

“Oh, look at that, a sextant shaped picture frame…”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Hermione warned through tightly clenched teeth.

“Now, why would you think I was being re-dic-culous?” Ginny inquired in a sing-song voice, brushing her fingers delicately over the picture of the golden trio during their glory days (the later term of seventh year) on the Hogwarts grounds, near the edge of the lake. While the photographed versions of Ron and Harry continued cackling and tackling each other into the lake, Picture-Hermione gave Ginny stern glares while silently reprimanding her…much like the real Hermione was doing now.

“That’s enough!” Hermione scolded a crimson Ginny. She looked as if she were trying extremely hard not to let something out, though a lewd smirk was still visible on her freckled face.

“…Cock…amamie…I’ll quit this cockamamie this instant,” Ginny said in a most sincere voice, ignoring the urge to burst with laughter at the childish use of innuendo she was displaying. Luckily (for her) Hermione chose to ignore the last one.

“Do you want me to take the test or not?” Hermione sighed reluctantly as Ginny simply let out a shrill cry of glee.

“This is going to be so much fun! How far along do you think you are so I can plan the baby shower-? Do you think it’ll be a boy -or a girl, ooh yes, a girl! What about names -ooh goody, I’m going to be a godmother!” she exclaimed in a giddy fashion as Hermione did her best to ignore her and sift through the bulging shopping bag for the muggle pregnancy test Ginny had insisted they purchase immediately. Of course there was a wizard’s way, but Ginny, who had previously experimented in that particular department, had deemed it a ‘perturbing and…sticky process that had to deal with sticking wands places they sure as hell didn’t belong-just trust me, Hermione!’.

Hermione had warned Ginny explicitly to at least try to be inconspicuous when she brought the items up to the check out lane as she recognized the clerk as the deadbeat son of a common acquaintance of her father’s. Ginny succeeded, to some extent at least, as the clerk, Eric had been to preoccupied with Ginny’s poor attempt to make incessant chatter over the ‘many’ differences of certain types of products (The subtle differences of plain ribbed and ‘Ribbed for Her Pleasure’ while Hermione hissed things such as “Ginny, would you shut the hell up? He gets the point!”) Besides, Eric was probably too sidetracked thinking they were off to some orgy or what-not because of the other ‘camouflage’ items Ginny picked up.

“Ginny what were you thinking?” Hermione inquired as she pulled out the contents of the magazine separately, taking time to grimace at each one: A ridiculously large economy pack of generic condoms, three cans of whip cream, a training whip meant for dogs, a box of chocolate covered cherries, two raunchy ‘adult’ magazines, cheap morning after pills, finally the pregnancy test, and free Kids’ Popular After School Hangouts brochure, and quite randomly a novel titled Photography for Dummies.

“Hey, he didn’t say anything, did he?” Ginny asked smugly as she jerked the Toothless Joe’s Easy as 1, 2, 4 Pregnancy Test out of Hermione’s reach and opened up the package.

“Well…no…but he kept on flicking his tongue between his first two fingers at us-” Hermione started to remind her, shuddering at the not so distant memory.

“Big deal. It’s just a way of saying ‘hello’.” Ginny responded indifferently as she struggled with the directions of the kit.

“How would you know?” Hermione asked unsurely.

“Because, every Friday night when I meet Ron and Neville at the local pub-they’re practically falling off the chairs then so it’s easier to get free drinks-Neville does that thing to me about fifty or so times…”

“…Gin…Somehow, I’m not reassured…”

“Whatever. Here, time for you to go take the test,” Ginny said steering Hermione in the direction of the lavatory, jutting the back in her hands.

“Well,” Hermione said after a moment of staring at the box placed in her hand wordlessly,” What do I do with it?” Hermione questioned, clearly puzzled.

“You have to…you know” Ginny put on her best ‘I’m-explaining-something-ludicrously-simple-a-five-year-old voice,”…Go make…piddly diddly.” Ginny explained slowly.

“Piddly Diddly?” Hermione looked up in distaste and utter confusion, “What the hell is that?”

“…Sit on the toilet and think about that really hard…” Ginny said mockingly. “It’ll come to you,”

“Oh? Oh…Oh no way. That’s not sanitary at all! What is this, a drug test or a pregnancy test?”

“What did you expect?” Ginny appeared slightly amused at Hermione’s reaction. Ginny wasn’t used to seeing Hermione confused on occasion. Surely, she was expected to know muggle mechanics better than Ginny, being muggleborn and all.

“Something that-that-well…I didn’t know what to expect actually…”

“Exactly! Now-get-in-there!” Ginny urged yet again.

“I said no! I’m not going in there to mess around with my urine as if this were some sort of tea party just because some crooked hick named Toothless Joe says its okay!” Hermione protested firmly.

“It’s just a little drop…don’t be such a baby!”

“It says the kit includes a cup. The last time I checked a cup was a bit more than a drop.” Hermione replied acidly, causing Ginny to smack her head in frustration.

“This is gonna take quite a while…” she sighed.

-Meanwhile-

“Pssst! Weasley…” I think Matt had forfeited his ability to whisper along with the ability to pay for his own food many, many ages ago.

“What? You want free drinks now?” Ron spat icily in Matt’s direction.

“Nah. I think Potter might be ignoring us.”

Gee. Now what the hell gave him that idea?

“No he’s not, tell him Harry.” Ron gave me a painful poke somewhere on my face; probably my eye. I couldn’t feel anything anyway as I was numb. I was so numb I didn’t even feel when Ronnie clambered up on my knee o demonstrate his newly acquired potty training skills.

“He’s not responding.”

“That could mean anything.”

“Like maybe he’s dead?”

Good thing I was ignoring them though or I probably would’ve stuffed some of Ronnie’s soiled newspapers down their throats; not because I was necessarily frustrated at them, just highly irritated nearly beyond sanity. I was still preoccupied with mulling out the previous occurrence at the restaurant.

‘Hmmm… let’s go over this again. –Poke, poke- Okay, I see her. –Poke, pokity, poke, poke- She sees me. –Poke-.’

“Knock it off Ron,”

“I told you he wasn’t ignoring us.” Ron said smugly.

“Well you were on the brink of putting his eye out…”

‘She runs away. She leaves me bewildered in the company of a fowl minded tart, very pissed off Miss Weasley, Ron and Matt who care more about the free meal she left behind, and Mini Weasley who is as interested in taking my eye out as his absentminded father…I still don’t understand…Maybe my breath smells…

I attempted to shut out my troubling thoughts along with the useless chattering of my ‘friends’, who had appeared to have set up residence in my office (since apparently I’m the only one who has work in this building, apparently), all their problems and obligations had seemed to magically diminish into thin air. Ignoring the Useless sacks of flesh, I turned to gaze at Ron Jr., who was busy toddling towards me, looking for things to destroy-no, explore, as Ron had put it. Though, it seemed he already had something to abolish clamped tightly between his mini fingers. Hmm…how nice. He bought me the remains of my prized model Quidditch set, the part that isn’t stuck in the depths of his soiled nappy.

“Ooh…Har Har baa guh! Baa guh!” I’m pretty sure he just called me a bad girl. They develop so quickly, theses little ones. By now he’d resorting to hurling broken up pieces of my Krum action figure…

“Say, Matt, since you obviously have no intentions of doing anything productive work wise, would you smell my breath?”

“…”

“No, baa guh!”

“Er, why?”

“No reason,”

Matt scooted over in my cushy swivel chair cautiously as if he had detected something fowl of its contents. He took one quick whiff and turned away sharply just as my door opened and Neville popped in all flushed and panting (My guess is Rosemary the secretary had tried to persuade him to get her some sort of payment increase…again). Yes the my office (part-time lounge apparently-I must’ve missed the memo) was yet again open for business, as if I didn’t have enough freeloaders…

“Hmm…smells like fish fingers and…lemon…”

“…Is that good?”

“I don’t know, maybe I should sniff again…”

“…Hello all.” Neville managed to get out as he sunk into one of the chairs facing my desk. I guess no one in this building had to work except for me I thought as I skimmed through my half completed monthly report of dark activity.

Neville surveyed the scene: Ronnie Jr. making a lunch out of my Krum figurine, Ron poking his head out of the door to witness any female activity, and Matt and me, our noses nearly touching as he bent down towards my mouth. My guess (from Neville’s beguiled expression) hat he got the wrong idea.

“…I think I’m getting the wrong idea. Hopefully. Please tell me I have the wrong idea.”

He has no skill whatsoever at hiding his emotions…

“I’m just checking my breath to make sure it’s okay, you know, not bad enough to-” I started to explain, considering the fact that Matt was more interested in sniffing food I had downed more than an hour ago.

“-Scare your wife away? Oh no, take it from me; it’s not your breath, its just you,” Ron stated in what would be a friendly way if he had any compassion whatsoever for his depressed friend. He didn’t.

“Oh wow, that’s really making me feel better.” I said, maybe bitterly from the way Ron’s face paled slightly as he shook his head vigorously.

“No, no, no. It’s defiantly her, pal. But who could blame her? She’s always been a tad bit on the…odd side. Maybe-maybe she…Er…wanted to find out some interesting facts about the…Er…toiletries and she decided to go off to the library. You know her; when in doubt, she goes to the library-” Ron went on like some kind of bantering idiot on…bantering idiot pills (I was distraught, do you really expect me to come up with wit at a time like this?). I would have to survey his pharmacy bills more carefully…

“-Please, Neville. Make him stop,”

“Ron, your son is attempting to set fire to Harry’s files,” Neville informed swiftly.

“Ho hum…I should do something about that, shouldn’t I? What’s the matter Harry? Your eye’s twitching again…”

“You know,” Matt said, breaking out of his tenth food trance of the day, “Maybe there is something wrong with her…maybe she got sick suddenly…”

Hmm… you’d think her spewing her breakfast all over the front of my shirt this morning would be a dead-giveaway.

“Really?” Neville inquired skeptically. I guess he didn’t notice Matt and Ron winking their eyes awfully hard in his direction or them muttering “Hut up-say, ou-yay reaking-fay oron-may” under their breaths. From the puzzled way Neville was staring at them I concluded I wasn’t the only one who missed out on Hogwart’s Pig-Latin course…

“Well…yeah. Harry, last time I visited you guys I remember her complaining on and on about something,” Ron said, obviously straining to remember something that had been tucked away in the oblivious abyss he calls his mind.

Last time I saw him thinking this hard was when I asked why he married Pansy (Yes, Parkinson. Don’t ask me how or why, all I know is it has to do with vodka, thirteen cans of whip cream, and a priest who happened to be in Ron’s hot tub. I just thank Merlin they didn’t breed and create some kind of mutated, bitter red-headed Slytherin offspring), so he must be telling a lick of truth.

“You just said it: you were there,” Matt and Neville replied at ease, in unison. The thing was they weren’t joking.

“No, she was moaning on about how she felt…”

“That’s why you don’t remember, it was her feelings. You show as much regard for those as you show potions.” Matt stated whimsically.

“You know…I’m really getting sick of you…”

“Oh wait, I remember that day! About a few weeks ago when Ron took us to that Quidditch match to spy on the Bigonville Bomber’s new keeper-!” Neville exclaimed, probably delighted with himself for remembering something without the aid of his remembral.

“It wasn’t spying!” Ron snapped back in Neville’s direction, a little too defensive…”Just observing…snarky little twit thinks he’s so hot with his wavy hair…and sexy eyes… and Thunderbolt 330…-”

“Er…right…continue Longbottom,” Matt urged on, disrupting Ron’s jealous/homosexual tendencies.

“Well as I was saying…she cancelled out on us that day, remember? She stayed home, sick in bed because she had these headaches, not to mention the fact she threw up on you Harry,” Ron replied, out of his trance.

That explained the Déjà Vu I experienced that morning…

“What was up with that? I swear, that’s all Hermione does is nag, pee, and vomit; kind of like Ronnie…or a cocker spaniel,” I could see Ron trying ever so hard to ponder out the difference between his son and a cocker spaniel so I didn’t bother to interrupt him by smacking him on the back of the head.

“She does that often, I presume?” Matt questioned me.

“Well…she’s been doing it more often lately, I suppose.”

“Aha! I got the answer…I think…your wife…is…Er…that’s that word…bulimic! That’s it! Why else would she always kip out after meals?”

Now I’ve heard some of the most stupid things Matt has ever said…but none more stupid than the things he said when he was actually thinking.

“…That’s…that’s impossible!” Ron exclaimed, finally seeing eye to eye to me, as a real best friend should. “If Hermione was bulimic why would she have dropped out of Dvination in third year? Being able to tell the future and all, that would’ve been an easy pass for her…” Ron concluded, rolling his eyes with an amused expression crossing his freckled face.

Forget what I said about the seeing eye to eye thing.

“Idiot,” Matt concluded huffily under his breath. We see eye to eye.

“Bulimic doesn’t mean you can see the future Ron, it means you can read minds,” Neville informed ever so knowledgably.

“That explains it. She must have foreseen what Red here,” he gestured to Ron, “was imagining and took off sake of her own sanity/health. Yep, case closed,” Matt said gallantly, clapping Neville on the back dramatically. If there’s anything Matt can master better than gluttony (hardly any) its sarcasm.

“Exactly. She must’ve known what I was- hey! What are you trying to say?!”

It’s really best to ignore Ron when he’s like this. Or like that. Or over here or there; best to ignore him everywhere (Er, sorry. Harmony’s little stories are starting to brainwash me…again. Damn that Dr. Seuss and his loose imaginary animals and their tainted eggs and ham!)

Being the educated one in our group, I knew exactly what bulimic meant; it’s when you can move/transport things by thinking really hard (Thank you, Toothless Joe’s A-X Children’s Dickshunaree). But of course, that was ludicrous because if that was the case, all of our possessions and ¾ of Hogwarts would be scattered throughout different parts of the South Pole by then…

"…No, that can't be." I muttered, chock full of…educatedosity, "I know Herm, she wouldn't-no-that's not her."

"Well something's wrong with her." Neville can be so bright sometimes, I wonder how he does these brilliant deductions- oh no, Matt's rubbing off on me!

"Maybe she gets motion sickness,” Ron muttered, crumpling a spare piece of parchment to bat it into the rubbish bin. I think he expected us to ‘ooh’ and ‘Ah’ at his amazing Quidditch abilities.

"Zarrah! A-Abba!" Ronnie's getting as rational as his good old Daddy.

"Or maybe she's a-a-a…vegetarian!" Matt declared accusingly, nearly knocking me out of my chair.

"Or really a man!" They really don't have enough sympathy for me…

"Or really…a woman!" Brilliant deduction, my dear Weasley.

"But what if she's a closet…drinker?" Matt offered in an aroused manner, as if this were some sort of exciting guessing game.

"Nah, not her style. I’d figure Hermione to be more of a closet…junkie…” Ron decided firmly, prodding me, probably to see if I was still alive, either that or his one-minute attention span had gotten the best of him.

“…Right…Or, for the sane and rational people of the room- Harry, Longbottom, Er, little Weasley- I believe Hermione’s stressed.” Matt responded, brushing Ron off once again as he attempted to regain his wise airs.

“Oh, wow. That’s news to me,” said Ron, his voice simply drenched in sarcasm that would put Mat to shame. It was true though. In fact, Ron has a saying that if you were to stick a piece of coal up her rear end within two hours it would become a diamond (Ron’s sudden philosophical side isn’t a stroke of genius, it’s a result of being locked in the muggle studies class, left to watch nothing except muggle movies from the eighties. Sad, is it not? I don’t think anyone could love Ferris Bueller that much…)

“I think she’s faking it,” Ron added as a second thought, taking a new interest in his reflection through the window.

“I think she’s eating double meals behind your back,”

“Or maybe…maybe she’s…Er- I don’t know, pregnant…?” Neville mumbled jokingly, barely above a whisper yet loud enough to snatch our attention and put an unpleasant shock to my system (who knows, It may have been the fact that Ronnie found a striking resemblance between me and a toilet.)

Matt, who seemed more offended than any of us (as Ron and I were simply frozen on the spot, petrified as if we were facing a herd of ticked-off threstals…with rabies) scooted from his position across from me, towards Neville, drawing in closer to his face.

“…Are…you…insane?! Don’t wish such-such things against Potter! What do you want him to end up like, Weasley?” Matt hissed, poking his finger firmly into a fearful Neville’s chest.

“Yeah, what do you want him to end up as m-hey! What is that supposed to mean?!” Ron exclaimed, thrusting himself forcefully out of his chair.

“…Weasley, your kid’s running naked down the halls.” Matt replied offhandedly, motioning for the open door leading into the halls.

“…Not, a word…any of you…not a word.” Ron ordered in bitter, hushed tones as he glowered about and sauntered out of the room reproachfully as Neville and I managed to crack a smile in his direction.

“You might want to hurry before everyone begins to notice all the little features he takes after his father,” Matt called out in a sing song voice, lounging back in his chair as Ron scrambled through the halls after the little tyke. “See, Longbottom?” Matt started again, “Kids are not a laughing matter.”

“Hey you two,” Tonks, sporting a jungle of violet frosted locks stuck their head in the ajar doorway and motioned sternly at Neville and Matt causing them to yelp like injured dogs and jump a clear three feet into the air, “I highly doubt those-ahem-‘rehabilitated’ deatheater chaps hanging about the fourth floor are going to inspect themselves…”

“…How can we be so sure of that…?”

-Meanwhile-

“…Haven’t you washed your hands enough?” Ginny inquired exasperatedly, lying on the cold wooden tiles of the hall, facing the ceiling as Hermione scrubbed her hands fiercely for about the hundredth time.

“Never again…never.” Hermione muttered repeatedly, shaking her head firmly over the sink.

“Aren’t your hands peeling by now?” Ginny questioned lazily tracing patterns into the ceiling with her wand. Hermione grimaced her way before stepping into the hallway and towering over her sinisterly, obstructing her path.

“Ginny, stop talking.” Hermione demanded faintly, sounding a bit on the ill side.

“I was just saying-”

“Now.”

“You act like I forced you to this. If you didn’t want to do it you didn’t have to; it’s not like I was holding you at wandpoint,”

Hermione didn’t have to say anything as she loomed dangerously close to Ginny for her to get the point. Slowly, Ginny’s hand crept to the side of Hermione’s foot where the empty box lay.

“Er…shall we check? I think the results are in,” Ginny suggested meekly, waving the empty kit box in front of Hermione’s tight face.

“Knock yourself out.” Hermione replied dismissively, motioning for the sink where a stick, her test, had been sitting for quite some time now; since Hermione had started washing her hands, actually.

“Er…sorry, not so keen on dealing with the ‘touch-another-witch’s-urine’ department.” Ginny stated, unmoving from her sprawling position next to Hermione, who surprisingly, didn’t react verbally to this statement, but instead, yanked Ginny up by a rather large portion of her hair.

“Really? Tell me another, Gin.”

“Ouch! Lemme go, lemme go!” Ginny whimpered, wrenching her hair from Hermione’s tight grasp.

“You know,” Hermione said eerily at ease, releasing Ginny’s hair, allowing her to scramble up on her feet and head to the direction of the bathroom sink, “I only do these harsh things because-”

“-You’re a harsh sadist?”

“No. It’s because you’re my best friend and I love you, little friend.” Hermione said with a gentle grin.

“Oh…so you’re a harsh lesbian sadist experiencing mood swings,” Ginny concluded, nodding her head in an understanding.

Ginny clambered over to the sink and peered down at the small plastic rod. The damp square at the end was showing faint signs of color, causing Ginny’s stomach to stir in excitement.

“Hey…Herm?” Ginny called out, trying to fight the excitement arousing in her voice as to not alarm Hermione.

“Yes…Gin?” Hermione replied, imitating Ginny’s tone.

“Could you read the back of the box again?” Ginny requested in an overly-sweet tone, causing Hermione to eye her suspiciously through the door.

“Um…sure. ‘Howdy y’all-,’” Hermione started reading the back label only to be interrupted by Ginny.

“…Howdy?” They repeated in unison, Hermione looking more skeptical by the minute.

“Don’t interrupt. ‘Toothless Joe is here to tell ya if you’s be having a bun in that thur oven of yurs. Warning 37% chance of causing birth defects”

“What sane person would willingly call themselves toothless Joe? And how can a pregnancy test cause birth defects?”

“As I was saying…’If by yonder you’s sees blue, well yee-haw, slap me around and call me Mary-Jane cause there’s a baby for you! (Confirm with Doctor). ‘If pink is wut you’s see, then aww shucks Ma’am, slap me around and call me Mary-Jane, no younguns for you (confirm with Doctor).’…Why is this man obsessed with being slapped around and called a woman?” Hermione inquired no one in particular, clearly disturbed by the fictional hick’s words.

“Er…is that it? Only pink and blue?” Ginny asked faintly from within the bathroom, sounding just as confused as Hermione.

“…Why? What color is it?” Hermione called back, slightly alarmed with Ginny’s vague response.

“Er…”

“Ginny?”

“Ahh…”

“Ginny…”

“Um…I don’t think you took it right.” Ginny mumbled finally, stepping through the doorway, the test dangling from her right hand as Hermione snatched it swiftly.

“…Purple?” Hermione questioned unbelievingly, blinking hard as if the result was just a temporary colorblindness.

“There must be something on the box…” Ginny replied in a logical…eerily Hermione-like manner, swiping the box from an awestruck Hermione who seemed to be beyond doing anything besides rambling on about purple.

“Hmm…let’s see here,” said Ginny, surveying the label carefully. “Hey, I wonder why they put so many warnings on here…the fine print is just them repeating that Toothless Joe is not responsible for any defects or…implosions?”

“…You mean…after all that-,” Hermione breathed out briskly, still glowering down at the test which was still marked distinctly by the purple square at the end despite all her blinking efforts.

“All what? You just peed in a cup.”

“Excuse me!?”

“Anyway,” Ginny ignored Hermione’s mindless bantering and continued to scan the minuscule print on the back of the label until her eyes rested upon a caption in red just underneath the blue test result.

“Herm, Herm, stop pretending I’m listening to you for a moment and look at this! I think I found it!” Ginny exclaimed gallantly, thrusting the box under Hermione’s nose, for her to read as well.

“Ahem…It says-,” Ginny started to say to her dazed companion who immediately snapped back,

“I know what it says! It says ‘In the really really really rare case your test reads purple (this happens about as often as the birth defects but my lawyer is shaking her head really hard so I guess I’m not supposed to tell you that-oh damn this is going on the box? Good thing no sane person would buy this God-forsaken, backwater test-) Well bygummit-,”

“What the hell is bygummit? That’s not even a real word!” Ginny protested mockingly.

“It’s one of those terms that don’t mean anything…like ‘Calabunga’ or ‘Yee-haw’ or ‘Increase the Peace’…” Hermione replied in an automatic yet offhanded manner.

“…Oh…”

“-Well bygummit, you’re more fertile than a jackrabbit in heat that just escaped from prison and into Pappy’s Viagra drawer…?” Hermione finished, sounding a bit on the dizzy side. She turned to Ginny, silently searching her for an answer.

“…In other words…it means Blue,” Ginny said conclusively, causing Hermione to yelp out in a squeamish fashion and shudder involuntarily. “With no need to confirm with a doctor,”

“So…so…” She kept on repeating faintly, feeling the heat rise slowly to her face.

“So…congratulations…I suppose…So, can I be the godmother?” Ginny questioned merrily, attempting unsuccessfully to shake Hermione out of her stupor.

“…Am I standing on carpet?” Hermione asked, voice barely reaching a raspy whisper.

The question struck Ginny as odd. You’d think if you just found out you were pregnant you could find something else to discuss what you’re standing on…Despite Hermione’s questionable behavior, Ginny still replied, deciding Hermione was just in a shock…a really deep shock.

“Er…no, you’re not.” Ginny said, tapping the hard wooden tiles with her foot as if o demonstrate to Hermione.

“Oh…damn…” Hermione mumbled dismissively right before her knees gave in and she collapsed, falling headfirst onto the hall floor in a dead faint, narrowly missing Ginny.

Ginny stared down at Hermione bemusedly, feeling rather too elated to take her condition as a serious matter. Kneeling down next to her hesitantly, Ginny began to tap her face lightly at first, eventually leading up to violent slapping in attempt to revive her.

“Herm…Hey Hermione…is that a ‘yes’ for the godmother thing?”

-Meanwhile, somewhere not so far away-

Grace grinned contently as she dug around her purse frantically; seeking out the pair of house keys her father had been so keen on giving her so long ago. She’d only come home willingly about three times in total since she moved out, but this time it was different, she decided. She was on a mission: to be the first to spread news of her newly found gossip about Hermione (a rare yet excellent find for Grace), and unlike her news about Gordy’s alleged drug problem or Donnie being a dominatrix (…that would mean he’s a female, genius…), this news had an element of truth to it, she thought excitedly as she thrust open the front door. I was just a pity that her father wasn’t home at the time…but she could always give him a ring…

“Hey, anybody home?” Grace called out into the seemingly deserted house upon entering. Only receiving an echo as a reply, she trekked on through the house, thinking somebody had to be home.

Grace traipsed through most of downstairs, pausing to check the kitchen and office thoroughly before glaring at thin air in frustration and continuing on her search. After pacing through all the empty corridors she found herself at the foot of the staircase, where she had entered.

Listening intently, there was a light pattering sound upstairs, resembling the sound of little footsteps running all about, causing Grace to turn up the stairs, heading for the bedrooms.

“Who’s up here?” Grace called out irritably, as you can guess she’s not a very patient person. She paced through the corridors slowly, following the sound of footsteps leading up to the end of the hall: her youngest brother Artemis’ room. Just as she placed her hand on the doorknob, something smacked her own the back of the head…hard.

“Hey! What the-?” Grace spat out acidly, whipping around quickly to spot her assaulter, a tittering toddler, around four years old she guessed, clutching an odd red ball that she didn’t recognize from any of the sports she knew. Judging from the child’s curly blonde locks which resembled her own to an extent and his face full of freckles, Grace concluded that this had to be Gordy’s son, her nephew Andre. Most of the time Grace had trouble telling if she had gained more nieces and nephews overnight or if her parents had decided to bring in strays…

“You again!” Grace gasped out menacingly, pointing an accusing finger at the seemingly innocent child.

“Auntie She-Beast!” the young kid greeted, bounding over to Grace, attempting to clamp his short arms around her waist as Grace shooed him away in an unaffectionate manner.

“Please…no touching…” Grace said faintly, grasping for the door handle, which, to her surprise, was already twisting open under her hand.

“Dad, I swear it wasn’t me this time-oh, now who let this demented stranger into our house?” The young lad who emerged from the room questioned light heartedly as he grimaced at the scene before him. “Please, your dad would kill me if he found out I let you play with such heartless rubbish,” The boy told the toddler, taking time to pry him off of Grace’s midsection, allowing the toddler to roam over him, plowing through his raven shaded hair, tousling it all around his flushed, yet gleeful face.

“You…”

“Is that you new phrase or something? Honestly if you’re not here to do anything productive, will you hold your arms over your head and pretend to be a hoop? I need to practice if I’m going to make the house team next year…” he responded to Grace’s bitterness nonchalantly, tossing up the red ball which had been hurled at her, a quaffle, up into the air before catching it again and repeating the process as the toddler raced back into the room, emerging again towing a trunk decked out in Gryffindor themed decorations that spelled out ‘Artemis’ on the side.

“Ugh…” Grace said, shuddering involuntarily. “No, I don’t plan to aid in your little freaky activities, Artemis-”

“You’re calling me the freak?” Artemis questioned in a bemused fashion, his childish turquoise eyes glinting maliciously as he grimaced in Grace’s direction.

“I was just wondering if there was anybody useful preferably with more than half a brain in the house,” Grace asked in what would be considered a sweet way if you didn’t know her.

“Well…let’s see…there’s the…wall on the first floor…and have you spoken to my owl, Cherub?” Artemis suggested innocently, flipping open the lid to the case Andre had drug in and replacing the quaffle in its rightful position between the two struggling bludgers.

“And me! And me!” Andre insisted, waving his hand enthusiastically.

“Not if you take after your father,” Grace replied in a strained though affectionate manner.

“Oh, sis, I’m not really that bad, am I?” A raspy voice picked up behind them, not startling Grace at all.

She knew that her twin brother Gordy hung around their parent’s home often (so often, she questioned if he still had a house or a wife for that matter…). It helped him ‘work’ better, to be back in his old roots, he had once said. Grace, however, did not consider his job real work at all as she deemed it ‘sitting around on his lazy bum all day playing stupid kiddy games’ which it was technically. It was Gordy’s job to play prototype video games and to rate them something he had been doing ever since he was old enough to hold a bottle.

“Well…yes, you are,” Grace said after pondering for a moment.

“Well here I was thinking Grace was the evil twin…” Artemis replied whimsically.

“Argh. I’m guessing Mother’s not here. I’ll just go then and hold in my urgent news until later.” Grace said teasingly, waving a dismissive hand to the guys as she strolled lazily to the top of the stairs, waiting for one of them to question her…which nobody did.

“…So Artemis…you making lunch?” Gordy questioned at ease, ignoring his sister’s presence as he ruffled his already unkempt curly blond hair.

“Ahem.” Grace uttered gruffly, unmoving from her position at the top of the stairs.

“Nah, I have to practice if I plan to make the team only in my second year,” Artemis said, motioning towards the trunk which contained his Quidditch equipment.

“Ahem.”

“Oh…Quidditch.” Gordy said firmly, as if tasting the word which seemed unfamiliar and just plain odd to him. “It would make a choice video game, the fact that you fly, alone is worth gold.” Gordy concluded.

“Yes, I suppose so, though I can’t imagine anyone who would willingly stare at a screen for ages searching for that annoying snitch…”

“Ahem.” Grace said a bit louder.

“I think Auntie wants a cough drop.” Andre said thoughtfully.

“Well,” Artemis’ face broke out with a grin, “except Harry.” He said, his mind dwelling on his sister’s Quidditch crazed husband who had taught him everything he knew, and had even got him his Quidditch ball set when he started Hogwarts.

“Well,” Grace started nastily, once she realized her coughing trick had no chance of grabbing their attention as she hoped it would, “Harrison,”

“Harry,” both of them chorused in unison.

“Grace, you still here? Now I thought I heard somebody hacking up a lung…” Gordy questioned contently.

“He won’t have much time to frolic around spinning old Quidditch yarns with you like he used too, not when he has a family on the way,” Grace finished acidly, cutting her eyes at her clearly bewildered brothers as she stomped down the staircase.

“…Grace…what are you going on about?” a voice called behind her as she reached the front door, causing her to smirk slyly and face her two brothers.

“I’d thought you’d never ask…”

“We weren’t going to…”

-~-~-~-~-~-

“Potter,” Tonks gently laid her hand on my shoulder moments after chasing away the freeloaders (Neville, Matthew, and Ron).” Don’t let what those guys say get you down,”

“…We’re you eavesdropping on us, Tonks?” I managed to crack a tiny, though evident grin. “You’re one to talk about slacking off…”

“Don’t get smart,” She slapped the back of my head in a very Ron-like fashion.

“Now, now, no need to get physical…put the wand away please…”

“As I was saying…I’m sure Hermione’s fine, ad if she’s not, at least you’ll have an excuse to sip work…”

“Hey! I only did that once!”

“…”

“Maybe twice…”

“Or four or five…”

“Puh.”

“Anyway, at least Hermione will have legitimate sick leave…with the maternity leave and all…”

“…”

“What’s the matter? Not so keen on the subject of kids yet?”

“Ho hum…how funny…my nose just started bleeding so suddenly…you caused me a nosebleed, are you happy now?”

“Not as happy as I’ll be when you get those reports in. It’ll be nice to know what ‘evildoers’ are still breathing down our necks this month…”

It was nearing dusk and, thank Merlin, I was home. Though, despite Matt’s friendly efforts to wash away my memory with a few beers at the pub down the street, I could still remember me and Tonks’ conversation (sadly, I don’t blank out after two drinks like some people *coughRoncough*). It sort of scared me, the idea of having mini me running about, destroying my house and everything in its path (i.e. Ronnie). The idea of a clone seemed more appealing (as it would still look just like me, but it wouldn’t be so much damn work…)

I stepped into the dimming house, listening intently to detect some signs of life. Usually, Hermione got home before me, though she more than often stayed after hours on the job, but I’m used to it by now.

Though…she usually owls me if she’s coming home late…

Ignoring the simple fact that I was starving, I avoided the barren kitchen and started stumbling blindly up the stairs I realized two things: 1) A clone would mean trouble as well, as they would be another person to fight over food with, and 2) Stairs suck (mind you, I slipped over three times being as weary and tired as I was).

As soon as I reached the top landing I surveyed the halls, looking for a bit of light or movement. Nothing, so that meant nobody was here trying to surprise me with the bit of loving I so desperately needed (at that point, I really believed the only person who considered my feelings was…Er…Ronnie, who is my only friend who wasn’t trying to convince me my wife is a man, partly because…well…he’s a baby and he can’t talk…yet).

I didn’t even bother to pick up behind myself as I stripped off my tainted work clothes through the hall as I wondered off to my room. First the tie and robe…then this horrible man-blouse (as Ron calls them)…phew…gotta get rid of the pants…stupid shoes are in my way…By this time, I was already collapsed on my bed, not bothering to remove my shoes which were obstructing the path of my trousers which had wound themselves contently around my ankles. I was at total ease with the world at that moment, as there was nothing but me and my big…cushy…bed…and that stupid belt buckle that kept on scratching my ankle…and the annoying hole in my sock which was causing my big toe to catch a draft…Why, I didn’t even notice that Hedwig had found her way through an open window and had began to peck at my head mercilessly with her beak in a persistent manner, the way she does only when its Hermione who sent her…

4. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: Is this really necessary even after I’ve restated the fact over and over that I don’t own Harry Potter?! It’s just depressing now!

Author’s Note: This chapter is kind of short which is why I’m updating so soon after posting Chapter Three. Now, let’s get this straight once and for all. I like Ron, I genuinely do (Who doesn’t?)…I just choose to make him do stupid, frivolous things at times for my personal amusement- so it’s nothing personal! *Pats Ron action figure on the head*

Strangely, many people would find it odd that seemingly…normal people with normal appearances and normal lives could be so mentally unstable that it would make them rather…abnormal.

These are people such as David Adonis Granger…the third (quite an evil man). In my opinion, that man had everything; a great family…a great job…a great son-in-law, me, Harry Potter (though he doesn’t exactly see it that way)…a great weapon sanctuary…you know, all the normal things a person could need. It never occurred to me that he would ever end up in a psychiatrist chair blubbering over some meaningless toy, a Barbie doll perhaps (most likely…pathetic, is it not?), that his father, David Adonis Granger…the second (a slightly eviler man) never allowed him to have ages ago…Well actually it did, but that’s not the point.

A sturdy structured man with sharp features intimidating enough to make a Snape (Ron concluded Snape was a creature rather than a human back in sixth year) turn tail and cry, though soft enough to earn the total love and adoration from my wife- rocked mechanically back and forth, quite in a manner like myself I might add, seemingly forgetting his present surroundings.

“…Er…if you’re done then,” the young psychiatrist began to say shakily, dropping the tattered hem of his olive green sweater and collecting his notebook and attempting to retreat behind his desk though unintentionally disturbing the man seated ever so intently across from him, probably pondering on how to slaughter some poor innocent…baby animal in the woods…and not the ones that give you rabies; the cute orphan ones like Bambi. He was a very twisted man indeed.

“Where are you going?” The very twisted man (A.K.A. my rather twisted father-in-law) inquired sternly, almost in a deadly tone, jerking his finger to the direction of the clock ticking away a bit faster than usual pace on the back wall of the office. “I still have three minutes left,” He informed him, indignantly flicking his thick mane of salt and pepper shaded hair back from his face to reveal the glare he usually reserved for me…The glare of ‘I-currently-can’t-think-of-a-way-to-murder-you-so-I’ll-just-make-you-piss-your-pants-until-I-can’

“It’s been an hour!” the man exclaimed in an equally cross manner, his icy blue eyes set aglow.

“What’s your point?”

“You only paid for fifteen minutes!” he noted, swiftly throwing own his coat while searching for his hat, “Honestly, how many more horror stories of your father can you have?” The young man questioned exasperatedly, flicking his own obsidian locks in a similar way.

“…Have I ever told you about the time he made me dress up like a girl and took back my name because he felt I wasn’t worthy enough to bear his honorable surname…?”

“…These things…I really shouldn’t know. For sake of my own sanity. Between your mentally abusive father and your increasingly waning libido, you’re causing me hundreds of pounds in therapy, which is pathetic considering I’m-a-psychiatrist!”

“Your sanity, your time, your money, its all about you, isn’t it? You should’ve been a dentist…like me,” David Granger whined heatedly, raising himself from his seat not bothering to look the young man in the eye. It’s a lot of things to see a grown man, nearing his mid-sixties, whining; like it gives you a feeling of sad and…pathetic. Mostly pathetic in this case.

“Don’t you give me that! Do not tell me that after all these years of slaving and studying and listening to bantering old codgers drone on about the fifties that I should have become a dentist!” The psychiatrist went on huffily to the demanding, bitter man, who seemed like he could care less.

“Fine then,” Mr. Granger said shortly, doing his best at keeping his cool and looking superior to everyone in the room: the psychiatrist…and…Er…the desk, I suppose.

“Good, leave,”

“What?”

“Go, now!” he commanded once more, though he knew that the man would never take orders from him, as he never had and he never did. It always amazes me that such common acquaintances with this evil man still have most of their limbs in tact, or at least still visible in some…technical way.

Mr. Granger gave a short derisive noise, signifying that…he was a very evil man, a fact that I just can’t seem to get over, though if you’d seen what crap he put me through, you’d know why. The young man countered this with a sharp, defiant huffing noise, as he continued to shove all his papers in different directions, in preparation to end his work day.

“…And I thought you were the good son, Donnie…” he muttered under his breath begrudgingly picking up his own coat off the stand unwillingly, though doing it nonetheless.

“…I really think I should listen to Mum when she tells me to call proper authorities when you show up here…

“Mr. Granger,” an abrupt, nasally female voice rang through an intercom, interrupting the men’s little row.

”What?!” They both snapped in response, David Granger not realizing that he was in the office of another Mr. Granger, his son David Adonis Granger…the IV, chiefly known as Adonis or Donnie. After being the butt of heated animosities from most of the men in that family for years, It was clear to me, being the observer that I am, that with the name came the evil that gave you the incentive to do menial evil things like torture some poor baby deer or torture some innocent bloke who has no control over his wily hair. Though luckily for me (and all the ickle Bambi’s) in the world, the evil spazzy gene wears down as it goes farther into newer generations. So by the time I’m One hundred and seven, there’ll be a David Adonis Granger who won’t care to hunt my blood, something to look forward to in my opinion.

“Your sister Grace is on line one, and she claims she has important news for you regarding your youngest sister, Hermione…”

_~_~_~_Meanwhile_~_~_~_

Somewhere distant, (very distant as I wouldn’t be caught alive within a two mile radius of those two guys without my personal body guard, my ‘Mione), Ron and I were bustling around my bedroom, very unlike us to be bustling, mind you.

Moments earlier Ron had swaggered into my house, completed from his frenzied drinking with Matt and looking for bigger things to destroy than the pub (Like my house). Ron found it necessary to make his own key so he would be able to, you know, be very Ron-like and drop in at the worst times. This is very inconvenient if it happens to be three in the morning and I have to lug my drunken (and frequently singing/biting/licking) chum up a flight of stairs only to have Hermione banish him to the couch downstairs, causing me another trip.

At least this night he wasn’t blatantly drunk (actually it was rather hard to tell with Ron) so I would be able to drop him off on his parents later.

“…Harry?” My semi-drunken comrade called out, not bothering to show common courtesy and actually make room for me on my own bed as he laid there in a shiftless heap, dangling Hedwig’s ‘urgent’ news over his face.

“What?” I replied at ease (highly irritated in my book), searching desperately to find a pair of matching socks like I had been attempting to do for the last forty-five minutes. By this rate I could’ve founded and restored the lost city of Atlantis before I ever reached the Burrow, the place where I had bee so hastily invited to by ‘Hermione’…

“…This,” he started, getting up just to thrust the parchment under my nose (roughly, I might add), “-is not from Hermione.” He stated firmly in a proud manner, as if he was deducting the stirring conclusion of some…Scooby Doo murder mystery (I can’t believe muggles let their children watch that mind-numbing rubbish about a talking dog and his hippie masters who obviously practice the seventies lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll)

“…I know that,” I responded calmly, ignoring the fact that my rather thick friend would think I’m so…well…thick, as to not know my wife and friend of umpteen year’s handwriting.

“It’s Ginny’s handwriting, you know,” he continue to banter on uselessly, hoping in vain that he would throw me a new and such a groundbreaking piece of information that I would probably drop to my knees and dawn him the new Velma or something ridiculous of the sort.

“…I know that.”

“…Oh…alright then…” Ron mumbled on, shuffling off to find something else to occupy himself in my bedroom. Of course, being Ron, this means he immediately found himself immersed in a certain someone’s Er…unmentionable drawer, and let’s just say that he wasn’t digging his grubby claws through my briefs (Merlin forbid).

Though this was normal Ron behavior, intoxicated or not, to unconsciously be infatuated with anything that would arouse his…Ahem…raging libido. Simply due to the fact that the half of his brain (the half that was in charge of ‘unimportant things’ like Potions, Divination…table etiquette) had been engulfed by sex and all the cheap thrills of being a pervert a guy could want.Sadly, that side of his brain and the Quidditch side fused together, making Ron obsessed with playing with his balls, no matter what set you’re referring to.

“…Harry?” Ron called out to me once more, idly holding up a pair of lacy bras, most likely judging which one would look best on him. It’s not that he’s a cross dresser (well…not usually…only when he gets hyped up about that rather odd musical) that’s just how Ron judged everything, on how it would benefit him.

“Yes Ron?”

“Why would Ginny want you over my parent’s house in the middle of the night?” Ron questioned blankly, deciding on a skimpy scarlet bra, and continuing his quest for a pair of Hermione’s knickers that suited him. I decided to ignore his actions, as he was my best friend and I didn’t want to risk pondering of what he actually planned to do with women’s underwear, sake of I might loose respect for him, not to mention my lunch.

“I have no idea,” I said offhandedly, prepared to humor his overly suspicious tone as to keep him quiet. “Maybe she plans to seduce me and she can’t do it at her flat because you and Colin are constantly banging on her door looking for a quick snog or a bite to eat…or both…” I added warily, stroking my chin in an inquisitive manner as to turn the tables. At this, Ron got rather flustered, and blushed madly as if I had accused him of-

“You think that-I never-you-that would be incision!”

“…I meant Colin, you dolt. And you mean ‘incest’, not incision.” I corrected him, finally settling on a ragged green sock that somewhat matched my torn and faded black sock…of you kind of squinted your eyes.

“Then what does incision mean?” Ron inquired, clearly baffled as he moved on from the drawers to the closet.

“That’s when…you…you know…when you…to a boy, hopefully when he’s a baby…” Of course, Ron wasn’t as linguistic as I (obvious as he just stared blankly at me like a dull goldfish) so I had to resort to crude sign language. I made my fingers into a scissor like sign and motioned down towards my crotch, “You know…snip, snip…” I said, and then at once Ron got it, as he gasped in horror and recoiled from me as if I had just said something dreadful about his mother.

“That’s…that’s barbaric! Anyway, that’s circumference, not incision…and you call me a dolt,” He said haughtily, stepping into the bathroom across the hall, hoarding a shirt and some various little articles of clothing with him.

Oh yes, ignorance is bliss when you’re young and stupid (as we had been for many, many years, and I doubt we were going to change anytime soon- not that it mattered. Of course, Hermione burst both our proverbial bubbles about the whole…er…snip-snip-boy-parts-torture thingy later on in life)

“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked him, causing him to snap his head back in my direction.

“Well you don’t expect me to go to my parent’s house smelling like rum, do you? I need to change clothes. In fact…you should take a shower too, Harry,” Ron suggested, momentarily disappearing into the bathroom and later emerging with the end of my toothbrush sticking out of his foaming mouth…Eww…

“Why? I didn’t spend my evening doing Merlin-knows-what down at the pub with Neville for a free pint,”

“Yeah but,” he started again, managing to cover most of my wall with splattered toothpaste, “You’re all sweaty and grimy looking…You can’t let the enemy see you sweat, then they’ll know that you know that they know that you know that they know that you’re on to them. Got it…? Wow…is it me, or does this picture really make me look fat?” Ron’s mind drifted to a different subject, causing his eyes to wander over to the opposite wall, totally forgetting the toothpaste dripping from his mouth onto my carpet.

“…That’s because that’s Neville…” I replied with only half an ear to listen to the nonsense Ron was babbling about. I had more important things to think about. Important things other than wondering exactly what Ron plans to do with that very feminine blouse…

An evil omen had just occurred; I actually understood what Ron was saying (not the bit about him being fat because he’s actually Neville…that’s just drunkard rubbish…well its all really drunkard rubbish though…never mind). Hermione was the enemy in this case, and in order to find out what’s behind enemy lines, I’d have to keep my cool…and not burst into the room bawling madly and throwing wild accusations like Ron had suggested when I was positive he was sober.

_~_~_~At the Burrow~_~_~_

Molly Weasley peered around her dining room suspiciously, in pursuit of one of her children, which was not out of the usual in any way for her; in fact, she was quite used to t by now. Now in her late sixties, she and her husband of Merlin-knows-how-long, Arthur Weasley were very rarely left to have the Burrow to themselves, even after having all their children grow up and start their own lives. There was always a twin who had been kicked out after having a row with his wife, or Percy whose constant nagging and whining could only be tolerated by one woman, his mother, and let’s not forget our dear Ron, who usually appeared on the porch in the wee hours of the morning, singing rude rhymes about pirates. And that’s not even touching the subject of grandchildren.

Suddenly, Molly’s livid eyes rested on a scene in front of her; One of the twins, most likely Fred, Molly noted, sitting across and holding a light conversation with a figure who automatically shielded her face from her mother’s prying eyes, and proceeded to sink down into her seat in hopes of disappearing, quite a difficult feat when her fiery hair blatantly shown out against the dark chair.

“You two articles, there…” An elderly (though you wouldn’t know it by the way she acted) and still plump Molly Weasley called gently to her one and only daughter as she tentatively dapped her flour and muck covered hands onto her apron unconsciously.

Ginny, who was seated at the dining room table quite contently, didn’t bother to look up at the worrisome expression her mother was sure to be sporting. She immersed herself deeper into the Witch Weekly article on ‘The Illusive Stubby Boardman’, determined not to face her mother’s inquiry.

“Wow, she’s forgotten our names already and she’s only, what…? Sixty-nine? That means George wins the bet…” Fred noted disconcertedly, drumming his fingers idly against the table.

“You’d think she’d remember the name of the only girl in the family…”

“Ginny dear,” Fred started to say in a rather serious tone, “I know we’ve had our rough patches with Percy but that’s no reason to disregard him from our family!”

“Ginny…”

“I’m reading Mummy Dearest…” Ginny replied in a meek voice, continuing to hide behind her magazine.

“Thanks Gin,” Fred spoke up, snatching the magazine from Ginny’s fingers swiftly, with a haughty grin plastered on his slightly worn, though mischievous face. “Stumpy Boardman is my idol,” he explained in an eerily sincere voice to his mother and sister.

“It’s Stubby,” Ginny began to say, turning to face her mother now that she had no choice.

“Ginny,” Molly started, towering over her daughter.

“…Mum…” Ginny spoke softly, attempting to suppress a knowing grin.

“…Fred,” Fred spoke up, interrupting the still silence suddenly, “Now that we’re all sure who each other are, let’s get on with it.”

“…Can we talk?”

“Would you be awfully offended I said ‘no’?”

Ignoring Ginny’s rather serious question Molly took a seat next to Fred, across from Ginny.

“…I sense there’s a problem.” She stated flatly, crossing her arms across her buxom chest.

“…You don’t say?” Ginny commented lightly, the tips of her ears reddening slightly- never a good sign.

“Damn that paternal sixth sense!” Fred exclaimed, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Er, whatever would give you that idea?” Ginny questioned sweetly, putting on a false falsetto voice.

“Well…for one, Hermione just kicked me out of my own kitchen which she is currently filling with rice pudding,” Mrs. Weasley dejected, rather bluntly motioning to the kitchen doorway which was slowly but surely filling with an ominous smoke cloud as a pleasant aroma drifted past them.

“Ah…the ultimate comfort food.” Fred pointed out brightly, anticipating the treats yet to come.

“I thought that was potatoes,” Ginny responded blankly, eager to change the subject.

“Yeah, and last week you said it was whip cream…” Fred said skeptically, putting down the article.

“Only if you mix it with chocolate,” Ginny said with a slight frown daunting her delicate features.

“Everything tastes better with chocolate,” Fred confirmed, a knowing smirk dawning on his freckled face.

“Like cherries…”

“Or nuts,” Fred added, smacking his lips as he flicked his tongue in a slight lewd manner.

“Or how about…peanut butter?” Ginny struggled to continue the conversation in hope to distract her prying mother.

“…Or tacos…” Fred inserted yet another choice food, earning questioning though disgusted looks from both Mrs. Weasley and Ginny.

“The point is-” Ginny started to say before being interrupted by Fred.

“-That you’ve run out of interesting topics to delude our loving mother away from the topic of Hermione’s condition?”

“…Pretty much…” Ginny stated dismissively, turning back to the magazine, dropping the subject manner and leaving it to Fred to finish up.

“Er…Don’t worry Mum, I’m sure when Harry and ickle Ronnikens get here they’ll have loads of surprises other than the disastrous amounts of rice pudding overtaking our kitchen…” Fred concluded, a dark though anxious tone lurking in his voice.

5. Chapter Five

Disclaimer-Of course I don’t own Harry Potter, what gave you that idea? *burns various boxes of bootleg “Harry Potter goes Funky Reggae” shirts* Damn…it worked so well with the Simpson’s…

Author’s Note: Once again, thanks for the reviews- they really do help. Harry finally finds out in this chapter! (It’s about time, eh) I’ll really try to add more fluffy/mushy/romantic scenes in the next chapter, alright? It’s past midnight now, so I really have nothing else to say (besides “God, I’m so tired my eyes are burning…”) except for read and enjoy!

Nine More Months To Go

Chapter Five

Now, never, in all of the fourteen years that I’d known the Weasleys, have I ever been nervous or afraid to enter the Burrow. Not even that one time that I was posed as a male stripper at Alicia Spinnet- no, Weasley’s bachelorette party…but that’s telling you too much, no? Though low and behold, after years of being apart of this one, big, happy Weasley family, I’d still been standing out here at the front door, frozen with fear or what -not, and that unnerving scent of rice pudding really wasn’t making it any better. I mean, it’s not like I was visiting my in-laws or anything, all these people actually enjoyed me and for the most part (or at least some part) were sane.

Of course, my pal Ron was at my side for all of this, or close at least, as he scampered after lawn gnomes in his semi-drunken stupor. Of course, he had to stop sooner or later. His attention span wasn’t that long, you know.

“…Harry…Harry, I’m freezing,” Ron rubbed his forearms feverently as if to illustrate his point. “Stop being ridiculous and go in,”

‘Really Well there goes the alcohol rush…’ I thought, watching Ron rub his thighs fiercely through his skin-tight leather pants to generate some heat.

“-Well of course you are Ron, I would be too if I was wearing Hermione’s shirt; your whole back is exposed…” I muttered observantly causing Ron’s eyes to grow about the size of dinner plates.

“This is Hermione’s?” He inquired in a innocent, bewildered fashion, tugging at the satin shirt tentatively as if just realizing what a tight fit it was. “I thought it was a muscle shirt!” Ron wailed hopelessly.

Puh…Ron just refuses to admit that he enjoys to cross-dress, as if any sixteen-year-old brother would insist on giving his sister’s closet ‘inspections’ so often without a plausible reason…

“You said it was yours!” Ron protested bitterly, as if it was solely my fault he was in dire need of psychiatric help.

“No,” I corrected him shortly, eyeing the doorknob anxiously for about the hundredth time this hour, “I said I enjoyed it the most. Look, I can even see your nipples! …Mate, do you ever shave your chest…?” Quite a disturbing image that was, I might’ve had nightmares about great, red haired monster gorillas if I hadn’t looked away…

“-Stop looking at my nipples!” Ron shouted defensively, shielding his broad chest firmly, eying me warily from under his nose. Like I was the one with issues.

“Y-You think anyone will notice?” He hurriedly changed the conversation from the subject of his nipples, and good thing too, because from that certain light, it looked as if he had three and my friend the triple-nipple was the last thing I needed to think about when I was already under such anxiety.

“Of course not Ron, Ginny only gave Hermione the shirt and Hermione only wears it every other weekend over here but I’m sure no one will notice…” I replied reassuringly patting my buddy on his partly bare back causing him to shudder indifferently.

“Well…if you say so, Harry…well lets go in already, I’m starving…and I smell pudding!” Ron flashed an odd grin for a moment before turning to me.

“…Alright then…” I said, grasping the doorknob firmly.

“…Harry…” Ron said blankly, after a moment of me frozen with my and on the handle.

“-Any minute now, Ron! Don’t rush me!”

_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_

Of course when we actually did enter, something rather…odd was stirring in the air…besides the rice pudding. First of all, there was none of that constant chatter that I’ve become so accustomed of. Also, no laughter and not even the tiniest hint of an explosion…Something was obviously wrong. Ron however, isn’t as observant as I of his own home. Seeing nothing wrong with the scene before him (Fred and Mrs. Weasley staring at my dearest ‘Mione absolutely gob-smacked while Ginny silently went into convulsions in the corner at the rate where someone would surely have to cart her off to St. Mungo’s if she kept it up) Ron mumbled his greetings and sauntered off to the kitchen (Yet another surprise from my dear old buddy) to discover the source of the delicious scent. Typical Ron. Or should I say typical me for fretting too much to follow him…?

My brain told me to handle the subject firmly, to march up to them, grab Hermione firmly by the shoulders and shake her madly until she spills the news. I was suppose to take it like a man, you know, really show my authority, or as Ron calls it, “Manly Athoritah”, off of this crude muggle cartoon staring these foul mouthed children animated from cardboard. But who really listens to their brain (Or Ron for that matter) anyway?

“…Urm…Hello…Er…everybody…” I greeted quite meekly, glancing doggedly between the group and Ginny who couldn’t bare to contain her laughter at the sight of me…for the second time today, leaving me with the idea I should become one of those pathetic weirdoes who cake layers of make-up on and live to mentally disturb children so they can grow up and spend thousands of galleons on therapy telling about how their parents hired a freak to entertain at their fifth birthday party. A clown, I think they’re called.

Molly and Fred glanced up at me with some sort of ill pleasured expressions etched on both of their faces; as if I were some sappy three-year-old that had just been handed a great piece of coal for Christmas, perish the thought. They both just eyed me for a brief moment, making me painfully aware on how stupid I must’ve looked standing there with that cheesy grin slapped on my face when something was obviously wrong.

“Hello Harry,” Hermione greeted in a shaky though falsely cheerful voice. Bless her heart for trying to sound happy before she tells me that my world is going to end.

“Harry, good to see you,” Fred finally said, grabbing me and wrenching my hand up and down in a powerful state, “How you been doing? Laying off of the pint, or have you resorted to the Ron-like ways yet?” He inquired, dangerously cheery, and believe me, when Fred Weasley is cheery something is definitely off, especially if he’s cheery after nothing’s been exploding…

“…No, actually, I haven’t had a drink in ages, I’m feeling quite alright really…” I answer untruthfully, the truth is my heart has dropped a few feet to my stomach which is now becoming inflamed by the gastric juices spewing from my liver which happens to be malfunctioning in preparation of my entire body’s implosion.

Well…maybe I was over-exaggerating but you get the deal. Fred’s expression seemed to fall momentarily, then light up yet again as he turned back to Hermione, who seemed to be too immersed in tracing imaginary patterns into the table to notice my presence. You see where I stand in this relationship…

“You haven’t told him,” Fred stated, more than asked in an elated way to Hermione, who only nodded jerkily in response causing Fred to release a triumphant though muffled grunt before turning away again.

Told me what? TOLD ME WHAT, DAMMIT?!

“Told me what? Told me what, damn it?” As you can probably tell, loosing grip of my happy little world causes me to loose any inner dialogue I might’ve once had a long, long time ago…and it causes my eye to twitch, which, with my hair and my sprouting beard causes me to look somewhat like a hopped-up hobo under the influence of instant coffee. Not quite the calm, cool, persona I was trying to hold down.

Hermione then gave me the strangest look, like she was thinking a mix between something like ‘Are you sure you want to hear, its not pretty…’ and ‘You are so screwed if you make a scene…’ making me rather confused wondering if I should feel scared or just plain scared, and le me tell you there’s a major difference between the two. She got up slowly, ambled over to me and then took my hand tentatively took my hand…like someone had died or something…I tried to think, my parents and Sirius were already ticked off the list, sadly, and Ginny had passed out laughing her arse off so it couldn’t be any of the Weasley’s and I didn’t smell any chicken frying so Hedwig’s was okay-

“-Harry, I’ve got some news…”

“-Good news?” I squeaked hopefully, fat chance though…

“…-Well, it’s news nonetheless…”

“Greetings family! I see that we have company tonight Molly,” Mr. Weasley announced, saving me from wetting my pants for the second time tonight, though I shouldn’t have said that… “Darling, I was looking to start serving dinner for you- yes I am still good for something- but all I could find were these…giant…vats…of…pudding…” He hesitated, rotating his eyes from me…to Hermione…to Fred and Mrs. Weasley…to Ginny…and to me again…

“…Er…should I call someone for her?” Mr. Weasley questioned lightheartedly, motioning to a crimson faced Ginny who had been so caught up in her fits of raging laughter she had literally fallen and couldn’t get up.

“Nah…I’m fine Daddy…Just admiring the view,” Ginny stated quite airily, still slightly amused at the whole matter.

“…Right then…I’ll just assume that everybody’s haven’t gone mad and serve dessert before Ron here hurts himself…” Mr. Weasley muttered, sauntering back into the kitchen mumbling on about how Ron had been setting a bad influence over Ginny ever since he could talk.

“I should help, I’m starving…” Hermione announced, fleeing to the kitchen once again in pursuit of Mr. Weasley.

“Wait, what about my news? And…I thought you hated all puddings!” Clearly, my ‘athoritah’ just wasn’t getting through to her. But of course, no one responded, as all that was heard

through the shut door were incoherent things sounding much like ‘…Ron, what the hell are you doing in my shirt?!’ or ‘Is there something you’d like to tell me son?’

_~_~_Somewhere…_~_~_

Young Artemis Granger, the youngest of the Granger children at eleven years old, scurried as swift as his worn out legs could carry him, silently cursing himself for not riding his Jetstream 4000 broomstick (never mind the fact that he was in an area heavily occupied with muggles) along with cursing his older siblings being to immersed in their ‘work’ to give him a ride. Arriving at his destination, about ten blocks down from the Granger residence, he hurriedly took a sharp intake of air, calming himself, and rattled the doorknob, prepared to pick a lock like he had been trained to by his friend in the prank business at Hogwarts. To no surprise, the door slightly swung open.

“Nestor…! Hey, Nestor!” he called out into the seemingly barren house, gingerly taking a few steps towards the living, finding it empty and then trudging on through the empty house, “…Jenny? Spock…Leia, is anybody here?”

“…Artemis, is that you out there?” A raspy voice questioned, coming from the room at the end of the darkened hallway, Nestor’s office.

“Yeah, Nessie, it’s me.” Artemis replied, feeling quite relived as he started on his way down to the office.

“Oh,” came Nestor’s voice, sounding a bit dejected, “I thought it was someone important. Well, piss off, I’m busy now,” Nestor commanded just as Artemis threw open the door, ignoring his orders as usual as most members of the family did.

Artemis nearly flew through the dust caked room and hurled himself into a swivel chair directed right across from Nestor who didn’t bother to look up as he remained hunched before an illuminated computer screen. Nestor looked like he hadn’t left the room in ages, something Artemis could fully believe. His usual curly, light brown hair was dishelved extremely and almost covering his bloodshot eyes, and also you could see traces of a beard appearing on his pursed jaw telling that he hadn’t shaved in days. Artemis gazed in awe at the various leather-bound novels which garnished the bookshelves covering the entire room also lined with sci-fi memorabilia and dolls which Nestor had spent years trying to convince people were action figures…

“…Where’s Jenny…and Spock…and Leia?” he inquired out slowly about the whereabouts of his brother’s wife and their two young children, Leia, a two-year-old and Spock, his nearly newborn infant, returning his eyes to his brother behind the computer screen, temporarily forgetting his reason of rushing there in the first place.

“With her mother…or our mother, I forget…somebody’s Mum, I’m sure…” He replied in a dry, monotonous voice, obviously having more important matters than his wife and two little children on mind.

“Er…are you okay…?” Artemis questioned tentatively fingering through a pile of important looking documents which were strewn carelessly across his brother’s desk.

“Tell me…how does this sound?” Nestor inquired suddenly, snapping out of his trance. He peered over his computer monitor and met his youngest sibling’s eyes.

“How what sounds?”

“The start to my newest novel, this!” Nestor explained, sounding quite exasperated as he tousled his hair dramatically.

“…What?” Artemis asked yet again, feeling quite dumfounded at Nestor’s erratic behavior, clearly getting Nestor feeling quite irritated for Artemis’ ability of not catching on.

“Are you just really thick or something boy? Look!” Nestor demanded sternly, whipping around the computer monitor and pointing to the single cursor which was blinking incessantly after the one word that tainted the screen, ‘This’.

“…Oh…” Artemis replied, realization dawning on him, “Er…I think you should start with something fresh like ‘Mr.’ perhaps.” He suggested thoughtfully, “What’s the story about anyway?”

“Well…” Nestor started, stroking the back of his unruly hair carefully as if just realizing the state of his appearance, “I was thinking of taking a break from sci-fi and horror…how does this sound, a story -a series if it sells, of an orphan who’s parents have been murdered by an evil sorcerer finds out he’s a…wizard…and he goes to this neat little wizard boarding school with secret passages and magic professors and what-not, and get this -he has to defeat the sorcerer that killed his parents to save this secret wizarding world of his,” Nestor explained swiftly in one drawn out breath, obviously pleased with himself,

“And as a marketing ploy,” he continued, smirking to himself, “I plan to write each book in slow, long spans of years to gather more anticipation and fans so by this rate they’ll be busy making the third movie by the time I’m spitting out the fifth book. Genius, right?” Artemis nodded mutely, attempting poorly to mask the disinterested look upon his face. He was one of the few Granger children who really could care less about books.

“And that’s not even mentioning the twisted relationships I’m cooking up…” Nestor finished, looking so pleased with himself Nestor feared he might burst.

“…I think…it’s been done…but generally…I like it…” Artemis struggled to scrounge up a few good words, remembering his mother’s not-so distant warning of not throwing his brother off of his high horse. It could’ve turned dangerous.

“Ha! Its amazing isn’t it?” Nestor exclaimed self-promotingly. “Isn’t it hard to believe that I thought of all this while I was wasted and I accidentally stumbled on a train heading to Scotland? I saw this guy who somewhat resembled Mr. Who and it just set my imagination ablaze…” Nestor slackened his posture and leaned back leisurely in his plush chair.

“Anyway…did you just come here to boost my ego even further or do you actually have a purpose -lay your grubby paws on my 1st edition Hans Solo action figure and you’re dead- besides harassing me?” Nestor inquired briskly with a slight frown darkening his face, slapping his brother’s hands of his messy desk. Artemis was used to taking this brisk, unwelcoming tone from Nestor. Artemis simply figured it was because Nestor had been the youngest- and therefore most spoiled child before he came along…

“…Wha? Oh yeah…I have some news…and I kind of need a ride somewhere and I am -how do you say- poor so there’s no use sending me to the train down the road…” Artemis replied slowly, disregarding Nestor’s warning as he plucked mini Hans Solo’s pistol from his hand despite the fact that Nestor continued watching him with a sort of bitter malevolence.

“…You remember that little pet hamster you had when you were six, you know, the one that mauled my Lord of the Rings lego sets even when I warned him to stop?” He questioned in a docile manner.

“Yeah…the one that ran away right?” Artemis stated, bemused as to why Nestor was bringing up such things at that moment.

“That’s what Herm told you, right?” Nestor continued, sending the eleven-year-old a piercing glare.

“…What about it?”

“Well, you remember my famous meatloaf surprise that you just couldn’t get enough of…?”

“-Fine! I’ll leave your dumb toys alone; just give me a ride to the hospital, now!” Artemis demanded shakily, recoiling away from his desk.

“Who’s at the hospital?” Nestor questioned, watching placidly as Artemis rose from his seat.

“Dad is, let’s go- here, I took the liberty of swiping your keys-”

“-Why’s dad at the hospital?” Nestor asked shortly, a flickering look of concern daunting his eyes.

“Because Mione’s having a baby…Come on, if we get going now, we can stop to KFC before it closes-” Artemis pointed out, dragging Nestor by the arm out of the office and through the hallway.

“What? That’s odd…she didn’t show at all…”

“No, no, no, she’s not having it now- Grace just told Dad so now he’s down at the hospital with Donnie claiming that ‘This is the big one’…again…” he clarified, rolling his eyes slightly as he led Nestor out the front door, not bothering to lock it behind him.

“Oh really then?” Nestor responded, feeling quite amused, taking his time to open the his car as if there were no initial hurry, “One day he really is going to have another big heart attack…” he muttered, plopping down into the driver’s seat. “Hurry, up, what time does KFC close anyway?”

_~_Back to the Burrow_~_

You know, I never had the idea that rice pudding could be so delicious…and it was especially easy to take these long, postponed moment s to savor each and every spoonful when you were desperately avoiding to get caught up in this uneasy dinner conversation. Tension might as well had been the side dish…along with whip cream and chocolate syrup.

“-So…Er…Ron…where is Ron Jr.?” Ginny, accompanied by Fred’s maniacal chuckling, would inquire about every couple of seconds to send Ron into an array of false explanations trying to avoid the fact that two drunken idiots (My mates, Matt and Neville) would probably turn up with him at my front door tomorrow as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley tutted on disapprovingly asking things like how did he manage to lose Lavender. But of course Ginny knew that would start again…

“I already told you…” Ron would mumble, slopping more pudding in his mouth.

“Okay then, why are you wearing drag then…?” Ginny would start on yet another row.

Every few seconds or so Hermione would glance at me from the corner of her eye swiftly before returning to her (What was that, her third?) bowl of rice pudding, and ever so often joining in on the tutting attack against Ron. However, after what seemed like a simple few grueling hours, she looked up and actually said something to me, and of course, everybody, including Mr. Weasley who seemed to be in on this little masquerade duping Ron and I, hushed up immediately and turned to me as well. What was this some sort of sane peoples intervention?!

“…Er…What is this, some sort of intervention for sane peoples?!” Yet again, I damn that nonexistent inner monologue of mine.

“…Harry, about the news-” Hermione started off in a no-nonsense, prefect-y sort of voice that gave me the impression that I should really be afraid.

“-Good news!” Mrs. Weasley piped in, trying to make my death sentence seem favorable.

“-Yes, you could say that. You could also say that there’s…ah…going to be an…”

“-Addition to our one big happy Weasley family!” Mrs. Weasley announced, clapping her hands together excitedly, ignoring my blank expression while clapping me on the back. After a few seconds of silence things seemingly got too uncomfortable for the men at the tale.

“Er…any drinks? I’m heading into the kitchen…” Mr. Weasley announced, rising from his seat with an offer too good for Ron to give up.

“Dad, could you get me a…light piña colada-don’t bother to go easy on the rum- with a side of pineapples, cherries and a whole load of whip cream on the side?” Ron requested sweetly, causing Mr. Weasley to glance at him and then his quite questionable garb with a suspicious look in his eyes which Ron seemed to notice immediately. “Um…better make that a beer, then…” He added in a gruffer than normal voice.

“…Right…I’ll be right back then…”

“I’ll help Dad; it’s not good for the old to over-exert themselves…” Fred concluded, dashing into the kitchen rather swiftly, leaving me with them, and their nonsense.

“Um…Harry…are you okay? You stopped breathing a few moments ago…” Ginny noted, poking at my head slightly with the end of her spoon.

“So let me get this straight, Creevy got you pregnant -out of wedlock, I might add- and he’s still living…how?” I questioned Ginny, causing Ron to sputter and choke on his pudding, taking a wrong meaning to the phrase ‘One Big Happy Weasley Family’. Maybe my brain wasn’t functioning to protect me or maybe I’m just daft, like Ron keeps on telling me.

“I’ll kill him, I get that little slick worm, just who the hell does he think he-” Ron started to get quite worked up, pulling up the straps of his-Er…Hermione’s shirt all tough and man-like.

“-You’re not going to kill anyone yet, Ron-guess again Harry…” Hermione said sharply to Ron, ceasing his outbreak immediately.

“Okay then…Mrs. Weasley, you’re not-” Oh don’t look at me like that, it could’ve been possible…kind of…sort of…maybe…

“-Of course she isn’t Harry! That’s just…wrong,” Ginny exclaimed looking a tad bit on the pale side. “I’ll give you a big hint…I’m going to be a godmother…”

In my book, that meant two things, and my brain hose to go with the second, still attempting to protect me.

“You mean-?” I gasped dramatically.

“Yes!” All three shouted at me while Ron looked about cluelessly.

“Really?” I questioned, turning to Hermione, who was now grinning weakly.

“So…you’re not upset?”

“…Why would I be?”

“So then you’re-?”

“Of course I am! When’s Luna due anyway? We can plan her a baby shower!”

They looked on at me while Ron choked softly in the corner, like I was the one that’d gone completely out of my mind.

“You moron!” Ginny growled, “How thick can you get, Harry?”

“…I wonder where Dad is with my beer…” Ron said, clearly trying to avert the subject.

“Shut up, Ron!” All three of them shouted, seeming more like prowling lionesses at the moment while Ron and I were the helpless meerkat and the warthog…

“Harry,” Hermione said after drawing in a deeper breath than necessary as she slowly placed he hand atop of mine. Her cinnamon eyes bored imploringly into my own, filled with compassion and the slightest trace of fear. Her bottom lip quivered uncertainly as she tried to find the correct words to continue and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to reach out and snog her within inch of dear life, to reassure her, to tell her that no matter what devastating blow she was about to deliver I’d still be hers…in spirit I suppose, if it was anything that serious…

“I’ve been trying to tell you, today Ginny and I found out…”

“…Yes?” I urged on, settling on squeezing her hand reassuringly, encouraging her to continue.

“That I’m…”

“-Pregnant. Yes, with a bun in the oven, she’s expecting, knocked-up, fully fertilized, with child -or rather- with your child, do you comprehend or should I elaborate further? Can you understand the words coming out of my mouth?” Ginny finished for her quite speedily. And I thought the suspense would kill me, I never anticipated the actual news.

We all turned towards Ginny blankly, who I just noticed was rather flushed. “Well,” she responded to the silence, dropping her spoon in a subtle fashion, “I think we were all dying with suspense there,”

About a million thoughts were teeming through my head, simply bursting to get out despite the fact that it seemed half of my face had lost the ability to move. My voice became stuck in my throat, along with my heart. I blinked rather feverishly, looking utterly lost all of a sudden. I felt light-headed, giddy, and like I was about to vomit all at the same moment.

“Ah…are you okay?” Ginny questioned, noticing my odd expression. She cocked her head to the side and set out to prod me softly with the end of her spoon. “Psst! Oi, Potter…!” she hissed, beginning to look concerned.

Okay? I was more than okay. I didn’t have some terminal disease- I was going to be a father…A Father. I remember getting the sudden urge to rush to the highest mountain and bellow it from the hilltops like that Dutch Lady from that ancient musical. Me, Harry Potter…a father.

Oh, bloody hell.

There was a dull and distant sound of silverware and utensils clattering as Mrs. Weasley rushed to my side, along with a smirking Fred who I was sure was cracking some snide joke. I wasn’t really sure, since I had engraved the image of the hilltop from that musical in my mind I couldn’t help but feel that infectious singing coming on…

A father. Doe…a Deer, a female deer. Ray, A pass of blah blah sun…Me- Oh, what was happening to me? There I was, at the dinner table surrounded by a flock of Weasleys and Hermione who were all desperately awaiting my response and all I could do was sit there blankly, mentally singing a song that annoyed the hell out of me from a musical that featured a lot of annoying kids.

“Harry? Harry, say something!” Hermione pleaded lightly, tugging incessantly at my sleeve. Her brow was furrowed due to her worrying. I desperately wanted to get up and twirl her about, making her forget all her worries, though my body seemed tons heavier, and my feet glued to the ground.

“Where is that beer?”

But wait, I slowly began drifting back to harsh reality. If I was to become a father that meant I would be having a child. As simple as the concept may seem, it only struck me just then. Hermione and I would have a living, breathing, and on occasion –vomiting responsibility. Hadn’t I had enough responsibility in school when the impending threat of Voldemort on my shoulders…? When did it end?!

Again, Oh, bloody hell.

“…Mrph…” was all I managed to say for a moment before I came speeding back to Earth again. “Well…Mrs. Weasley this is quite I nice floor you’ve got here…so firm…tell me, it wouldn’t happen to be carpet, would it?”

“…”

“…”

“…Dad, I think that drink would come in handy now…!”

“No…” Mrs. Weasley said briefly, sounding a bit winded, “Its actually wood…”

“Hmm…oh well, smoke if you got ‘em…” I muttered quite peacefully before slumping backwards in my chair and toppling over onto the floor, completely unconscious. Actually, I wasn’t completely unconscious at first, as I heard Ron’s distinct-able voice say-

“Oh goody, I love babies, drinks all around! When do we hand out the cigars?” Well, at least he attempted to make light of the situation.

6. Chapter Six

Author’s Note: I didn’t get this update up as soon as I wanted…(I have to catch up on my summer homework before school starts. Ack.) But I’m halfway through the next chapter already so I expect to have it up before school starts again. Thanks for the reviews!

P.S. This chapter starts off in the present and later goes back into the flashback, just so there’s no confusion.

Nine More Months To Go

Chapter Six

In my vocabulary, ‘Doctor’ is one of those words that are better feared than welcomed (Much like Grace Granger actually), probably because, no number of apples for any day would keep any of my doctors away (and mind you, these were the cheap, overcrowded doctors hoarding dull needles and rusty syringes the Dursleys would hire only while I was on my death bed, lots more times then you’d imagine for a tot) and I don’t suppose I had much of a better experience being held hostage by Madame Pomfrey in my later years either.

Having this said, you can only imagine my bewilderment when I discovered that people actually found joy in ‘playing’ doctor…Yes, yes, I’m referring to the dirty little children’s game given a much dirtier meaning by dirty adults with dirty minds. Quite…Er…dirty if you ask me…that is unless you’re-ahem-happily married…or considerably acquainted…or at least know the person’s first name, I suppose. A little rub there, a tiny caress there, a startling poke there, I sometimes wonder why I didn’t guess this was some class of sex game until now, while I’m watching my three-year-old daughter flaunt around the Weasley’s garden with that little imp Ron Jr. in tow, giggling madly as if they hadn’t a care in the world (should they?) playing their ‘children’s games’.

Tell me, if you were three and your Mum was right and ready to bring another wailing child in the household, and the only person who could understand a word you’re saying half the time is a slobbering five-year-old with an unhealthy obsession to phallic symbols, what would there be to giggle about?

“D-Do you see that? I think he’s-Ron, look-at-where-his-hand-” I stuttered out between gritted, interrupting the idle conversation floating between Ron, Hermione and Mrs. Weasley, who obviously weren’t seeing what I was, looking out into the garden.

“-Quiet down, they’re only…playing…” Ron responded to me nonchalantly, returning to his sweating cocktail drink, like it was no big deal.

“Oh, it’s no big deal, why Ron used to play like that all the time with little girls his age,” Mrs. Weasley followed-up on his statement, nearly causing me to choke on my biscuit.

‘Ron used to play that way…’ she says, well look how he turned out, probably planning a divorce with his third wife…not that I mind appearing as a best man at so many weddings…

“…Hmm…that’s odd…where’s she going with those…pants…?”

“So Harry,” Hermione started in a business-like tone, completely wrecking my train of thought, “I’ve narrowed it down to Francis, Benjamin, and Leonard-”

“Harry Jr.…James,” I reminded her aptly. It was only fair seeing as Harmony’s second name was Lily.

“-James, Nicholas and…Paris,” She finished, cutting a frosty glare at Ron as he let out a particularly loud snort. “What is it Ron?” she growled exasperatedly, stroking her hair back in place.

“Hm? Oh nothing, nothing…it’s just…you know that saying, Gay Par-ree?” Ron snickered into his drink like a ten year old who still got a kick out of potty humour and sex jokes…which is pretty much what he was if you added about four feet in height and a rather ridiculous looking goatee.

“-Anyway then, about names, I’m quite partial to Ron 2.0 and…Rhonda, and you Herm?” Ron questioned, twiddling with his shirt collar nervously, noting how Hermione was glaring at him dangerously from across the table. Hmm, and some people called him slow.

Eurgh. I’d rather think about this traumatizing doctor business than imagine having my first son named after Ron (I mean, no offense to Ron-he’s my best mate-but seriously, could you imagine what life would’ve been like for me if my parent’s would’ve called me Sirius Potter? Not only would people have confused me with an escaped convict but Malfoy sure would’ve had fun with that one…). And believe me, I don’t have many pleasurable memories when it comes to doctors…though, I’m sure I can dig up one…

- - -Back in 2005- - -

“Daddy? Daddy…you’re fine now-you just fainted. Stop being such a drama queen…” The faintest of voices called out at what seemed a distance as I groaned forebodingly and wrestled gravity to rise up from the unfamiliar bed.

My head was beginning to whirl and the creeping sensation of having to vomit was lurking in my throat as I strained to make something of the blurred image of this…person feeling up my…leg. Something was wrong. Hmm…All I could recall was eating…fishes…Hermione being pregnant…and…-Bloody hell! I paused to think about it for a moment; Hermione declared to be pregnant and then I blacked out and now somebody’s calling me Daddy…Not to mention the fact that there was an unexplainable breeze coming in down there if you catch my drift. Something was definitely wrong.

“Ack!” I screeched girlishly (And I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true…) flinging the strong hands off my thigh. The strong, manly hands.

“Och!” the impish little man squeaked in response, recoiling drastically and rearranging his rounded spectacles nervously, his mouth repeatedly flopping open and closed as if he were to speak. “J-J-Jasus, you gave me quite a fright, you did. Your wife told me you gave your noggin quite the bump on your fall b-b-but you’re okay now, Daddy,” The man in the white coat stuttered out buoyantly flashing a shaky grin as he ran his tremulous hand through his wiry copper hair.

“Daddy…? Just who the hell are you…and where in bloody hell are my pants?”

Oh yes, there were so many important questions whirring about in my mind, oh yeah, and I meant to ask of the whereabouts of Hermione and who exactly were those people stirring behind the curtain and exactly what this bandage was doing besides cutting off the circulation of blood to my head.

But those were to be answered soon enough.

“Aye, Daddy, don’t be gettin’ your knickers in a twist-” he said soothingly, as if I was purposely intending to come off as some deranged madman in a gown. Which I was, may I remind you.

“-That’s my point -I’m not wearing any- they’re gone! Er…not that I actually wear any woman’s knickers that is…Wait, why do you keep calling me daddy?!”

“Well your children seem quite shook up over your condition and all…”

“Children?! What condition?” I questioned helplessly, though the meek man had taken my leg in hand again and resumed molesting me.

“-Calm down, by this rate you’ll throw yourself into a muscle spasm…Bad enough tempting a heart attack and all.”

“Oh for Merlin’s sake you bloody codger get-the-hell-off-of-me!” I resorted to the first bright idea I got: attempting unsuccessfully to beat the man senseless (even more so) with a get well teddy bear on my side able along with my glasses addressed to somebody named…Adonis G.? Only then did I realize my (and the balding psycho’s) mistake…I wasn’t the ‘Daddy’ who had nearly had a heart attack, it was none other than-

“-Where is that no-good fornicating bastard?!” Some vicious, beast-like exhibit of some raw, unhindered force of evil bellowed in a volume inappropriate for any hospital as the beast went absolutely berserk and mauled the thin curtain in a rampant frenzy, glowering at me with its fierce crimson eyes, foaming at the mouth and ready to crush my delicate neck between his bulging claws, leaving me in a position where I could either piss my pants or cry… (For personal reasons, I won’t tell you which action I chose).

That’s from my point of view though.

Years later, I would here from many sources who claimed to be eyewitnesses that in reality it was a rather calm controlled growl as my ever so serene Father-In-Law took a firm and harmless wrap hold on my neck in a dazed and confused moment before Dr. McCormick (the balding loon feeling me up) managed to rationalize with him. And by rationalize they meant administer a morphine booster.

“Mr. Granger, sir? You’re in the hospital…and you’re…not dead yet…” I pointed out shortly watching the very disturbing man slide of the side of my bed in a relaxed heap, cooing slightly. With the privacy curtain drawn I noticed there weren’t just two completely mad people in the room- in fact, all of Granger clan were present, including Hermione. “Which is a good thing…?” I tacked on swiftly though everyone still shot me suspicious glares.

“I’ll continue murdering…you in a…second…oh, what pretty colors…” Mr. Granger murmured out in a spaced-out manner, gazing at the back of his hand.

“I wouldn’t doubt him about that, mate…and I’m not referring to the colors either…” Gordy said in a freakishly serious mode that didn’t suit him at all though breaking the silence nonetheless. And suddenly, as if snapped out of a trance, I was bombarded-not the brutal bombardment either of the elder Granger men would enjoy, the ‘oh I’m so happy to see you let’s have a sappy happy- go-lucky- family’ moment. I liked those…To bad we could only have them while Mr. Granger was under the influence or unconscious.

“He’s right, you know,” Dr. McCormick responded, looking quite out of place.

“Get out of here!” I hissed bitterly, there were enough men in the room giving me the creeps without him hanging about.

“Oi, Potter! You old sly dog you…” Artemis squealed out merrily as he clasping me around my neck. Sometimes I worried about that kid…maybe it was the copious amounts of times he was dropped on the head as a wee tot…

“Artemis…you’re…looking…um, cleaner from the last time I saw you,” I said truthfully. “So…how’s the quidditch going?”

“-Oh Harry,” Mrs. Granger said in a gushing, warm manner which made me wonder if she had a hit of morphine as well though it’s pretty hard to tell with her seeing as she’s been in hippy-mode since 1967. “Hermione’s been taking care of you, I hope,”

“-Or it seems you’ve surely been taking care of her…” Nestor threw in gleefully, munching on an overly greasy chicken-leg.

“You know, one could swear that’s sexual innuendo you’re using…” Gordy stated in a sarcastic manner, still pounding me in a hardy way on my back, despite my clear lack of clothing and the raving lunatic at the foot of my bed.

Nestor looked up from his bucket of chicken innocently.

“Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of it…”

“Really, because it sure sounded like-” Grace began to say before Gordy threw her an exasperated glare.

“Here’s a couple quid, Grace. Next time you go shopping splurge a bit and buy a dictionary and make sure you look up some big words like sarcasm, you know, the ones obviously not in your vocabulary,”

“-Harry, guess what! I’m gonna try out for the house team! Maybe you and ‘Mione could bring your baby and watch me play…once she squeezes it out -”

Hold it, that statement didn’t seem right…unless…that really wasn’t a dream! I thought maybe this hospital episode was just one of those “It’s A Wonderful Life” sequences, just instead of waking up from a dream of a world where I didn’t exist I had woken up from an Alternate universe where Hermione had just randomly decided not to take her pill at the wrong time.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, so that wasn’t a dream?”

“-Of course not Harry!” Hermione’s little outburst startled me (a reflex, I suppose). It suddenly got freakishly quiet for a room that was currently occupied by lovable psychos as they all looked back and forth between a fuming Hermione and myself all vulnerable and…pretty much in the nude, expectantly.

What the hell was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to run over to her, exposing my pale arse, and comfort her so she wouldn’t have to run a distance to strangle the hell out of me? Or was I supposed to hang about, gob smacked, desperately searching Gordy’s (The only family member that had the skill of calming Herm, which was surprising seeing how infuriating he could be) eyes for support.

A word to the wise, always go with the first choice. To bad I’m not wise.

Before I knew it, she had sporadically burst into tears and headed straight for the toilets, located right across from my bed. And crying in the loos was never a good sign.

“…Is it just me, or has Hermione been going into a lot of these dramatic mood- swing episodes where she ends up in the corner some where, crying?” Grace asked in her best innocent manner she could muster, which came off as just spitefully evil in our opinion.

“Oh darling, it’s the hormones,” Mrs. Granger explained to me sympathetically yet all I heard was, ‘Oh darling, it’ll be like she’s PMS-ing for nine months straight…’ but in this scenario, there were less objects to be thrown, thank Merlin.

“So…um…Mum,” Nestor said reproachfully, nodding his head towards Gordy.

“Gordy,” Mrs. Granger voiced over Hermione’s silent sobs coming through the closed bathroom door as she nudged Gordy, hard as she motioned discreetly to me.

“Oh, er…Harry,” Gordy said, giving me a meaningful glance.

“…” I had no words.

“Harry?”

“…” How was I supposed to know how their conspiracy thing worked?

“Harry!”

“…Erm…Grace,” I said, attempting to continue the trend before Mr. Granger flung an IV sack at my forehead. Apparently, the man could absorb his drugs quickly.

“You get your candy arse in there before I shove my foot so far down your throat, it’ll-” He snarled, straining to regain his composure.

“I’m up!” I said frantically, scrambling to follow Hermione’s suit.

“…Wow, Mum,” I heard Artemis behind me, “Hermione’s right, Harry really does have an extremely pale arse,”

- - -

I entered the small room and immediately spotted Hermione hovering over the sink, attempting to dry her very puffy, red eyes. I hated seeing her cry. Even more so, I hated making her cry. It made me feel like the pathetic, lowlife scum my father-in-law always accused me of being.

“H-Hermione…” I said silently, hoping she didn’t see or hear me, which would give me a fleeting chance to sprint out of there and call in Gordy. Of course, my luck had fluttered out of the window behind me.

She looked up abruptly, sniffling. Oh why did she have to sniffle? Like a miserable…vulnerable…child and I’m the one that made her do that. Yes, yes, I predicted that would become my new title- a very disturbed man who goes around causing children to cry.

“Harry, I-I didn’t know, I’m sorry, I didn’t think you would…you would…” she sobbed before collapsing into my chest with her body wracking with heavy cries.

What did I do? If this was her reaction to me fainting-

“-I’d hate to see your state when I die…” I mumbled into her hair, trying to resist the urge of pulling a Ron (Laughing at the completely wrong time, i.e. a funeral or patting someone on the head as some pathetic means of comfort).

“What?” She sniffled, looking up at me as if I was as mad as her father.

“Well…I can’t help the fact that I fainted- you sort of…shocked me. And it’s not like we ever, you know, discussed the idea of having…Er…little people…”

“-Children, Harry,”

“-Yes, that. Is just that, I’m not sure I’m ready to do such a thing- I mean, I’m still a kid myself, I need you to keep me from watching too much television or burning down the kitchen still. I wasn’t expecting that you would expect me to raise another child so soon,”

There was a problem here, I thought wincing. I was speaking truthfully. That’s another rule; never speak truthfully in a scenario when Hermione’s crying. But, after no hard objects came crashing into my sensitive areas I looked down where the sobs had receded and Hermione was staring up at me, looking at the edge of agreement.

“S-so, what are we going to do?” she inquired bluntly after a while of staring at me as if I’d grown two heads.

“Well…after I retrieve my clothing I suppose we’ll go home…start picking out baby names, in a while Ginny will be dragging us about buying baby clothes. Then I suppose Ron Jr. can spend some extra weekends with us so I can get some hands on training with kids,” Slowly slipping out of Ron mode,

wrapped my arms tightly around her waist. “Soon we’ll be able to attend those classes where they teach women to breathe like mad cows-”

“Lamaze?” She breathed faintly, snuggling closer into my chest in an adoring manner. I struggled to suppress a grin as I encircled her waist gingerly. This whole kiddy idea wasn’t so bad.

“-That’s the one. And after long hard years of spoiling him and realizing children are very useful in getting chores done, I suppose we’ll end up having another,” I finished.

Hermione peered up sharply. “…You do realize it could also be a ‘her’ right?”

“…Really? But Ron said if you do the deed standing up it’s guaranteed to be a b-”

“Never mind Ron…besides, we weren’t really standing- I was sort of positioned on top of the kitchen counter-“ Hermione mumbled off bashfully into a series of blushes. My meals had been oh so much sweeter after that particular rendezvous. “So…you’re not angry or anything like Grace predicted?”

In my personal vocabulary, Grace is just this. Grace (grAs), N.: An evil slag who has no real use except for fornicating and instigating; a common vector of syphilis and Chlamydia.

So anyway, that gives you my opinion on the evil twin, as I knew her as. It was hard believing she’d come out Mrs. Granger the same time as Gordy, her complete polar opposite.

“Why would I be?” I was truly shocked anyone as smart as my Hermione would believe *see my personal definition of Grace* “I love you.” I put my hands on her shoulders firmly and forced her to look me in the eye, preparing myself for the Ron technique (the good one). I lowered my face to the grove of her smooth, creamy neck- yes; I was administering Ron technique #5, the ‘Kiss and Make Up’, just one technique before Ron’s infamous ‘Crawl back on Your Knees like a Bitch’.

“I love everything about you,” I brushed my lips slowly up an imaginary line starting from the base of her neck just as Ron had coached me, (I won’t go into the actual lessons…or Ron’s interesting methods…) steadily making my rounds around her tear-streaked jaw line which bought me back to disturbing memories of Cho who Ron now assumed was part whelk after I gave him the details of the night she assaulted me in the Room of Requirement. “And that goes for anything that comes out of you,”

…That statement sounded much better in my head. Rest assured, I’m not a coprophiliac…most of the time.

“-Especially when it’s something I put in you,”

Smooth. So now it sounded like I was in love with my own…never mind…

“Do you understand?” I asked, thinking it better to stop saying anything that had a double meaning altogether. I offered a light grin, trying not to do that…that…thing that makes my mouth all…lopsided and awkward looking. Finally, Hermione cracked a smirk in return.

“You’re trying not to do that…thing with your mouth, aren’t you?” she questioned sweetly, stroking the side of my face affectionately.

“…How did you know?”

“Because, whenever you do that your nostrils start flaring, you always quirk the top part of your lip just a bit and your left eye sort of twitches, so you look ridiculous,” was the last thing she said before she collapsed into a violent fit of giggles.

Oh Merlin, pregnant women and their mood swings…This evening alone I had already seen Pensive Hermione, Furious Hermione, Weepy Hermione, Insecure Hermione, Paranoid Hermione, Giggly Hermione…the list goes on.

“Oh Harry, you’re…” her cinnamon eyes twinkled maliciously with mirth as the normal healthy color began returning to her façade. Slightly positioned on her tip-toes, she gracefully delivered a peck to my cheek.” You’re a laugh…”

A laugh, she says. Yes, a laugh, I’m a bloody riot, I am.

“I mean,” I started, shifting slightly so I was leaning completely on the sink and not smothering Hermione, “we’re having a baby,” I tentatively stroked her belly, which bore no sign of the little stranger just yet. “That’s exactly what we need to fulfill the typical ‘happy home’ stereotype,” I started matter-of-factly.

“And what, pray tell, is that?” Hermione chuckled lightly, grasping my hand abruptly and bringing them up to cup her face.

“You know…” I slight grin broke out across my face, “The typical young lovers that get married and proceed to have rowdy, mind-blowing sex in thier comfortable humble abode for the early years of their life. Soon, they progress into parenthood and have about 2.5 children before resuming the rowdy, earth-shattering sex which then would be forced to take place in their bedroom seeing as the children would be traumatized for life if they saw their parents doing the naughty bit on the dinner table,”

Hermione let a small, melodic giggle escape her lips before turning to question me. “Only 2.5 children, Harry?” She sounded a tad bit disappointed.

Well, I expect I would have scared her off if I voiced my initial thought of 5-7 children.

“We can work on that I suppose. Now, the best part, “I silenced her with a finger, “Is the part where all six- er…2.5 children grow up, skipping that nasty rebellious, hormone driven teenage stage and form happy homes of their own, leaving the parents- us, alone in our identical rocking chairs with our pitcher of lemonade, free to have all the playful nookie we want in our old age…except when the grandchildren are about.”

I wasn’t sure that Hermione was even listening to me at that point as her eyes had drifted closed in the middle of my little speech, leaving that impish, sweet grin upon her lips.

“You left out that part about you freaking out when you find your first gray hair, your stubborn denial of the obvious fact that you’re slowly but surely going bald, senile and impotent at the same time-“

“Hermione!” I glanced at her slightly appalled, though all the while nervous considering the possibility of her prediction being true. “How could you wish such things on the man you love?! Honestly…me, impotent.” I shuddered visibly. As if any course of nature could ever manage to tame my raging libido.

“There are good points too! The kids’ first steps…their first words… - there’s just so much to look forward to,” she assured me brightly.

Yes, and did I mention the rowdy, mind-blowing, sex?

“Yes, Harry, you did.”

I really needed to take care of that bad habit of saying what I’m thinking...

“Er…I love you,” I said meaningfully, doing the horrid lopsided grin thingy Hermione seemed to enjoy so much.

“I love you too,” she said genuinely to me, thrusting the door open, managing to topple over the tower of nosy eavesdroppers that had assembled at the door including that raving loon (the Doctor one), Gordy, Grace, Artemis and Mr. Granger.

- - -

“…Remember to get your regular prenatal check-ups…” Dr. McCormick continued babbling on even though I saw no need, I had nothing more to say to the loon now that I’d gotten back my clothes (There was no need to strip me seeing as I only had a slight concussion).

“-I can’t believe you guys would intrude on our privacy like that,” Hermione fumed aloud, apparently still outraged. I couldn’t help but lovingly smirk at my fuming wife while taking her hand solemnly before placing a silent peck on her forehead. It’s always like that. Whenever she gets mad, I kiss her once or twice and everything’s forgotten.

I know she hates that.

“Mione, did you two really do it standing up…?” Artemis questioned in a somewhat innocent manner looking quite astonished at the prospect of doing something like that.

He had no business fathoming the mechanics of things like that anyway, the precocious little sod. I, along with Mrs. Granger frowned slightly as Artemis continued making random awe inspired comments while slightly bouncing on my unoccupied hospital cot.

“Love is a beautiful thing,” Mrs. Granger claimed briefly before Mr. Granger had a chance to rupture another blood vessel or something of the sort… “It can be expressed in many ways…words…-“

“-And positions,” Gordy finished for her, shooting me a highly entertained beam from over his shoulder. I couldn’t help but marvel at his resemblance to his female counterpart, though I highly doubted Grace could master the particular skill of looking positively happy for someone else…or giving a genuine smile for that matter.

“I’m not hearing this, I sure as hell am not hearing this…” Mr. Granger chanted ceremoniously, massaging his temples.

“-So, shall I schedule a future ultrasound, then?” Dr. McCormick went on, ignoring the conversation as he scribbled furiously across his clipboard. “In…August, aye, that should be your three month mark…”

“I take it you’ll be needing this,” Grace stated nonchalantly, tossing Hermione a brochure sporting a pregnant woman looking horrid with a bright blue banner reading ‘It’s Not As Fun as Your Mother Made it Out To Be’.

“Shouldn’t they be getting a…a…specialized doctor, you know, the kind that deal with maternity and all that business and don’t walk around the trauma ward?” Nestor suggested brushing his untidy curls aside. He always managed to achieve that relaxed, ‘I-Just-rolled-Outta-Bed’ (which was probably true) hair style that I had been working for years to manage. Of course, after years of wrestling my hair in the mirror about every morning for who-knows-how-many years, we, my hair and I, reached a compromise. Now, I only had about 172 really bad hair days of the year (A huge improvement from my school days). Now match that with Hermione’s bushy hair genes…oh hell, that poor, unborn child of ours…

“Oh don’t worry, I’m versatile,” Dr. McCormick said in what was supposed to be a reassuring voice, I’m sure. “I’m a nurse,”

“…Well then…about my husband’s condition-” Mrs. Granger spoke up, interrupting Gordy’s and Nestor’s little spout of sniggers.

“Yes, the problem is there’s nothing physically wrong with him- it’s all in his screwed up little head,” Nurse McCormick noted. “It’s like there are little masochistic messengers in his brain telling his heart to have another failure.”

Well put, I say.

“-I’m seeing my real psychiatrist about this, not my failure of a son who’s methods only go as far to counsel little prats who whine about hating their fathers-”

“-Well that is what my diploma implies…” Donnie muttered, gathering his coat.

“-There’s no rule about counseling siblings, is there Donnie?” Gordy questioned in a genuine manner.

“They’re just teasing dear,” Mrs. Granger assured her husband.

I highly doubt they were. Gordy and Nestor had often been eager to share their ‘horrors’ of childhood (None of which compared to mine of course, but horrible enough considering Mr. Granger was their patriarch…) including being forced to share a room with Grace for the early years of life, frequent hunting trips with their father and grandfather in which a form a premature warfare usually ensued, being cooped up in a Dentist’s office for their summers, sugar-free snacks, and of course the principle of living under the same roof as Grace Granger and having absolutely no say whatsoever.

“-But, your psychiatrist is on holiday in France, remember? Calais, I believe, visiting relatives. That restraining order is in affect until he returns…” Donnie pointed out sharply in attempt to keep his father in check.

“Well then, I’ll leave Artemis at home!” Mr. Granger said with an air of finality, rising from his seat (Thank Merlin he was leaving). “I’ll take leave from work and spend a week in Calais-”

That was it. I didn’t need to hear the rest for I was on cloud nine or seven or whatever the heck they call it…All I knew was I wouldn’t have the bitter dragon breathing down my neck for a whole week. It would be nice…surely ‘Pregnant Wife’ was a reason to take off from work for a week, Tonks surely wouldn’t mind-

“Calais, isn’t that where Grandfather lives?” Hermione voiced, putting down the depressing brochure. “We can surely visit him, can’t we Harry?” She tugged excitedly at my sleeve. Of course, I didn’t dare voice my own opinion in fear of setting of yet another mood swing. “I haven’t seen him since Easter and this way I’ll be able to tell him in person. Isn’t it a good idea Harry? We’ll spend the week with him and Dad,”

Ouch. My bubble had burst and once again I had landed on my arse. My extremely pale arse…

Hermione’s Grandfather, David Adonis Granger the II, I believe, was most likely the evilest thing since the Gong Show became syndicated (believe me, watching repeats of idiots under the influence giving up their dignity for a measly amount of cash is torture)…okay, he could be eviler than that, but so bitter, rude, and snappish that I can’t describe it. He even made Mr. Granger quiver in fear, seeing his own father cock an eyebrow in discontent, and that’s saying something. It was said that D.A.G. II had lost nearly every limb fighting in some war, I think WWII, and for every limb or body part he killed a man and stole a replacement. And those were the bedtime stories he told his grandchildren. Though of course, like every other person, D.A.G. II had soft spots…such as cakes, sweets, his granddaughters (and of course his great-grandchildren) flowers…or as Mr. Granger saw it, anything besides his youngest son, Mr. Granger himself, and male hippies or anything that particularly pissed him off.

It’s odd that a man so fierce and cold could harbor such a gentle light to the rest of the world. Mr. Granger didn’t resent the fact that he shunned him so, it was merely the fact that he’d taken quite a shine to me. (And that made one steamed off Mr. Granger) And this leads to my equation, Mr. Granger + Poor Harry + D.A.G. II = Poor, poor, damaged Harry.

Merlin forbid we did a bit of hunting (D.A.G. II’s mind had been wrapped around sick war games since his return from the battlefield. He seemed to get really heated while playing a seemingly innocent game of battleship as well…) .

“Well…” I said at last, “At least we’ll get some shopping done,”