Hello again, all. I'm not entirely certain where this little plot bunny came from, but it was somewhat inspired by a Friends episode which you will probably recognize in later chapters. Let's see, I have the beginning and the end written for this sucker, but not the middle, ha, so it may be a bit before the whole thing is up here! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review if you have any constructive criticisms for me.
Disclaimer: I forgot to put one of these on A Connection so I'll just cover my tracks and have it apply to that one too-I don't own Harry Potter or any of JKR's brilliant universe, and, let's face it, if I did, I wouldn't know what to do with myself!
Maybe Baby
Chapter 1 "Something's Missing"
Hermione Granger woke up once again with her hand massaging her stomach. As the last vestiges of sleep left her and she became aware of her actions, her contented smile slipped from her face.
"Not again!" she groaned, rolling out of bed and standing in front of her full-length mirror. A disgruntled Hermione frowned back at her. How many times in the past few weeks had she stood there pondering her unpleasant wake-up calls? Upwards of ten, she calculated. But what did it all mean?
She sat down on the foot of her bed feeling around for her slippers without taking her eyes off of her reflection. The backwards numbers of the alarm clock on her bedside table told her it was nearly 5 AM. Well, losing a few minutes sleep isn't a total loss, she told herself. But she still couldn't ignore the undeniable fact that these "few minutes" were adding up, and eventually her loss of sleep would take its toll on her daily life.
With that thought she grabbed her dressing gown off the hook on the back of her door and made her way to the kitchen. The tea kettle was already issuing steam and a stack of buttered toast lay on the table near a disheveled and exhausted looking young man.
"Mmmmornin, Hermione," he yawned. "Tea's on already."
"Good morning, Harry," she replied dully, seizing a slice of toast from the stack, "What are you doing up so early? You don't have to go in for a few hours I thought."
He rolled his eyes. "Someone forgot to put Silencing Charms up on his room last night. I finally fell asleep about three hours ago, but I think my body thought that I'd oversleep so I've been up for a half hour now." He shrugged at her as she tended the now whistling tea kettle and busied herself pouring cups for both of them.
"That Ron. What'll we ever do with him?" she smiled shaking her head. At Harry's glare she said, "Hey at least I didn't hear them. I doubt he would have appreciated me bursting in to tell him to pipe down, even if it is in all of our best interests."
Making her way back to the table, Hermione handed Harry his steaming up and settled down in her chair. Harry had been returning late almost every night from his job as an Auror, explaining that Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Head of the Auror Division in the Ministry of Magic had insisted that each new Auror be assigned double shifts in the field to get more first-hand experience. Although Harry felt that he'd had enough "first-hand experience" fighting Dark wizards to last him a lifetime, he wasn't one to claim special treatment for being the Boy-Who-Lived or the victor against Lord Voldemort at the tender age of seventeen. Nevermind that he had accomplished all of this several years before he even qualified to become a full-fledged Auror.
Hermione studied his appearance, realizing that he looked almost identical to his former school self, complete with the beginnings of dark circles beneath his eyes and that same untamable hair. Even she could hardly believe that he was a twenty-four-year-old grown man who hated mornings almost as much as she did. Well, she didn't hate all mornings really, just the ones like this that left her with this new unfamiliar feeling.
"I mean, I've been having sleep issues as it is," she stated with only a trace of the concern she really felt.
"Really? In what way?" Harry asked with a furrowed brow.
"Well, I don't know what it is, really. I keep having these odd dreams. And then when I wake up I'm always rubbing my belly, but the second I realize I'm awake I keep forgetting what I'm dreaming about. I honestly have no idea…" she trailed off. She had great difficulty putting it into words. It surely wasn't anything bad that she was dreaming about, because she always felt so content in that twilight between dreaming and waking, before the feelings of confusion rushed in.
"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, forgetting it was still the wee hours of the morning and causing Harry to jump slightly in his seat. With an almost triumphant air, she said, "Is it possible that I'm ill? I've read about how your subconscious can give you clues to inform you when you have some kind of undetectable disease-"
"I don't think you're sick, Hermione. It might just be what you said, weird dreams," Harry interrupted with a small chuckle. "But if would make you feel better, why don't you go see Madame Pomfrey when you're at work?"
She instantly forgot that he had laughed at her idea initially and considered his suggestion. Well, if it's something to be worried about, Madame Pomfrey can just sort me out right then. If it's nothing, then it's nothing and I can make do, she thought.
"You know what, Harry? You're absolutely right. She's patched you up more times than I can count for sure, so she's more than able to take me and my trivial little case on. If anything, she can just ease my mind," she stated.
"Yeah, I wonder if they've removed my brass nameplate off of Bed #4 yet," Harry queried as he rose from the table to refill their cups.
"No, and I doubt they will. Ron said he'd put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it," she replied absently. Now that she had settled on a course of action, Hermione was feeling much more relieved than when she had woken up. She was just flipping through the previous day's post when they heard a shout from the living room.
"Hermione!" yelled Ginny from the fireplace. "Are you awake?"
Both Hermione and Harry removed to the living room, tea and toast in hand, to answer the Floo call. It always struck Hermione how hilarious Ginny looked surrounded by flames with her already flaming red hair and she barely repressed her chuckle as she sat on the sofa beside Harry.
"Yeah, we're both up, no thanks to your lousy prat of a bother," Harry answered grumpily.
"I don't even want to know," laughed Ginny. Then, turning to Hermione, she asked, "Do you think we could go to work together? I hate riding on those carriages to Hogwarts alone."
"Sure, Gin," Hermione replied. "I have to meet with the headmistress at quarter to eight though. Does that work for you?"
"Yeah, sure. I'll meet you at the Apparition point at seven then, okay? See you! Bye Harry!" waved Ginny, as well as a person's head in a fireplace could wave anyway.
Harry laughed. "Does that girl convert oxygen directly to caffeine or something? How is anyone that awake this early?"
Hermione smiled and began to collect their dishes and placed them in the sink as they returned to the kitchen of their flat. Harry joined her at the sink and they wordlessly finished up the washing and drying, each noticing but not commenting on the fact that many dishes had accumulated in the sink since dinner the previous evening, no doubt due to Ron. Hermione sighed as she heard the clock chime six and stared out at the windowless side of the adjacent building, noting not for the first time that it blended in exactly with the sky of an unremarkable, gray February morning.
Noticing her pause in their work, Harry looked over and studied her profile. "You know," he said, "I'll never understand what you find so fascinating about the side of a completely blank building."
"Do you think anyone would notice if we painted a mural on it?" she wondered by way of reply.
"Hermione, I think that's the fourteenth time you've said that since we moved in to this flat," he answered with a chuckle and snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. He had learned his lesson many times that if Hermione was preoccupied with something, it was a customary part of their friendship that he would probably hear about it before the day's end, at the very least in vague and mysterious mutterings. However, Harry doubted that this time she even knew what was bothering her, so he wondered if he should dare ask. An annoyed Hermione was not included in his list of all-time morning favorites, let alone an annoyed and very sleep-deprived Hermione.
But because he wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing, Harry delicately posed his question, "Um, Hermione, is all that dream stuff the only thing that's on your mind?"
"What? Oh yeah, that's the only thing," she answered as nonchalantly as she could, but she doubted that Harry was fooled. She internally debated whether she should tell him where else her thoughts had frequently come to dwell lately, but the entire idea seemed ridiculous even to her. Though it wasn't nearly as ridiculous as the thought of her being unable to confide in Harry.
"No, it's not the only thing," she said suddenly, startling herself. Harry turned to her, surprised, and she finally looked away from the window and at him. "The truth is, for these past few months, I've been anticipating something."
"What were you anticipating?" he asked.
"That's just the thing," she replied, shaking her head, "I have no idea. But it's enough to bring with it this feeling of…emptiness, like my life is missing something. But that can't be right, can it? I mean, I'm happy, aren't I?"
He wanted to agree with her just to clear up her expression of desperation, but images of Hermione's behavior from the past few months crossed his mind, and he could only shrug.
Shortly after Harry had defeated Voldemort, he was examined and treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, and Ron had undergone some similar kind of therapy to help him grieve for his fallen brother, Percy. Ron, Harry remembered, with his obstinate nature had not forgiven the prodigal Percy as his parents had, and so had difficulty dealing with the guilt associated with Percy's death in the final battle. Hermione, on the other hand, seemed to the outside world to only regard the vanquishing of Voldemort as a checkmark on the To-Do list of her life, and required only minimal medical attention.
However, Harry suspected that she had simply done what she always had, and buried her sorrows and pain deep beneath her normally functioning surface. Of course there would be something missing; Hermione had never fully gotten closure after the end of the Final Battle. To Harry this was the only plausible possibility-what else could a twenty-five-year-old woman with a successful career, caring friends and family, and loads of admirers be missing? Harry thought it inevitable that this need for closure would resurface and vowed that when it did, he would be there for Hermione as much as she had always been there for him.