The sunlight filtering through the white curtains woke me. "Maybe today's the day," I thought. I opened my eyes and listened to the silence. No husband snoring, no kids shreiking, and that horrid Muggle box, the television, wasn't blaring. I rubbed my bulging belly and wondered if today was the day. Granted, the due date was only yesterday, so I had nothing to worry about. I was just excited. I wanted to meet the newest member of the Potter family.
This was baby number three. Maggie came along a year and a half after mine and Harry's wedding. She's five now. Everybody says that she looks just like me only with green eyes. Next came Rowan, a charming little boy with dark hair and dark eyes. He just turned two last month. With both of them we were so prepared. Not that this baby isn't an accident, but with Maggie and Rowan we found out the sex of the child and picked out a name and painted the nursery an appropriate color and set up a crib. I looked to my left out the door of my room and into the nursery across the hall. Its walls were white. Ron painted them white after a particularly bad row with Hermione. He crashed in the nursery for nearly a week and decided on day one that blue with duckies just didn't suit him. The crib is in pieces, just waiting for Harry to clean it and put it together. He only carried it up from the basement yesterday. We still don't have a name picked out or any idea what the sex of this baby is. We've got some names floating around, Cassidy or Jessica if it's a girl, Michael or Nathaniel if it's a boy. Perhaps that's the reason why this baby hasn't come yet. He or she knows we're not ready for him or her yet and they're perfectly content staying in their warm cozy home.
With some effort, I heaved myself out of bed and waddled down the hall to the kitchen. No dirty dishes on the table, no open juice carton on the counter. It was already a good day. I went to the fridge and paused before opening it to get my morning glass of milk. There was a note on the door from Harry saying he had taken the kids to the park, he'd be home by eleven. I glanced over at the clock on the microwave. 9:58. When we bought our home, Harry insisted on buying some Muggle products. He wanted to have the best of both worlds. I got my milk and then grabbed the newspaper from the counter and flipped to the weather page. It was going to be another hot one. "Not again!" I groaned. Being nine months pregnant in August was not something I wanted to do again. The house had air conditioning, but I still didn't get the hang of working it yet. Pretty pathetic that my five year old daughter knows how to work something that I don't. That also goes for the DVD player and the microwave.
I walked through the family room, pushed the sliding glass door open and went out onto the deck. There was a slight breeze which made being outside bareable. My eyes wandered around the yard, stopping at the swing set and smiling. Fred and George bought it as a gift for Maggie's third birthday. My dad and Harry insisted on trying to put it together the Muggle way. After hours and hours of struggling with it, the whole thing fell apart on them and they wound up magicking the thing together. The swing set really was fabulous. I had always wished for one when I was growing up, but us Weasley children made our own fun. However, now I'm making up for not having a swing set by playing on ours with the kids as much as I can. Harry does the same. I looked over at the lake and at our little rowboat sitting on the sand near the lake's shore. Harry loved taking his nieces and nephews out for "fishing" trip. There was nothing worth catching, so they put gummy worms on string and hung them over the side. Usually they'd only do this once, the rest of the gummy worms would get eaten. Harry doesn't mind. He just loves to spend time with the people he cares most about.
I went back inside just in time to hear Penelope's voice coming from the fireplace. Her and Percy had eloped during my fourth year and they had been living in a small apartment in Diagon Alley ever since. Percy had finally come crawling back to the family and both him and Penelope were welcomed back with open arms once it was revealed that Penny was pregnant. Sadly, she miscarried during her fourth month and had many problems getting pregnant after that. However, thanks to Muggle infertility drugs she was pregnant again.
"Ginny!" she whined, "How do you do this?"
"Do what?" I asked. I could see she was fanning herself with something.
"Be pregnant in the summer!"
"Penny dear, you're only six months pregnant."
"Yeah with triplets!" she moaned.
"I would say come over here, but I'm about to pop any day now. Go over to the Burrow, it's always cool there," I suggested.
"Mmmm, perhaps I will. Thanks for the help."
"Your welcome dear," I said, turning away from the fireplace and rubbing my belly. "When is this baby going to come?" I asked myself. Suddenly, as if an answer to my question, a contraction ripped through my lower abdomen. "Today is the day," I thought.