Disclaimer: Anything and everything you recognise belongs to JK Rowling; I am merely playing with her wonderful creation and am not making any money off doing so.
Chapter One: Surprises
In some ways, she thought, it was funny that the thing you spent the most time doing as a professional Quidditch player wasn't playing Quidditch, or training, or even post-match interviews – it was medicals. Ginny Potter—or Ginny Weasley, as she was still known professionally—had spent so long inside the Holyhead Harpies onsite medical centre at the training ground in Wales that she sometimes joked it was more of a home than the cottage she and Harry lived in in Godric's Hollow.
This month, she was being tested to ensure she was medically fit to Portkey to Taiwan with the rest of the squad, to take part in a pre-season friendly with a team there. She was used to the tests now, and stood by patiently as Kristina, the friendly mediwitch, took various blood samples and tests from her. She was impatient to get back onto the field with the other Harpies, but she liked Kristina, and she was happy enough to gossip with her whilst she waited.
"So anyway, then I told him that if he wanted to talk to me like that, he'd have to buy me a drink first!" Kristina finished, and Ginny laughed appreciatively.
"Good on you!" she said. "So then what did he say?"
Kristina did not respond, and, had Ginny not had her back to her, she would have been able to see that this was because she was frowning at a test tube. "Kris?"
"Ms. Weasley, I'd like you to get back onto the bed for me, please," Kristina said, her voice purely professional. Ginny obeyed at once, alarmed by the sudden change—if Kristina had dropped the friendly banter, something was wrong. "Could you tell me the date of your last menstrual period?"
"The date of my...Kristina...you can't mean..." Ginny's voice drifted off, one hand rising unconsciously to her stomach even as the significance of the words became apparent. Now she thought about it, her period was slightly late – although not late enough that she had begun to worry. "I guess I am a couple of weeks behind...though I didn't think that...I..."
"And have you had any nausea, particularly in the mornings? Any fainting or dizziness, or strange cravings?" Kristina persisted.
"Now you come to mention it, I have been feeling a bit faint and tired every evening for the past week or so," Ginny said. "But that's normal, with our sort of training schedule isn't it? Isn't it?"
"Ginny," Kristina said seriously. "If you hadn't already guessed from my not-so-subtle questioning: you're pregnant."
"I can't be," Ginny said immediately. Kristina raised an eyebrow. "I mean, I'm on the Potion – I take birth control!"
"The Potion's good, but it's not failsafe. There's a one per cent chance that you'll still get pregnant, despite taking it correctly and...well, here you are. The one per cent," Kristina replied.
"Pregnant," whispered Ginny. "You're sure?"
"This test is one hundred per cent accurate," Kristina said. "If it says you're pregnant – you're pregnant. Congratulations?"
"I...I don't know," Ginny replied, bewildered. Though she was married, she and Harry had not been planning on having children for a while yet, and Kristina's news seemed almost as bizarre to her as if she was being told she was growing a second head, and not a baby. "I...I'm not sure what I...oh, Merlin, I'm going to have to stop playing, aren't I?"
She felt a lump grow in her throat as the realisation hit her – it was written into her contract (and the contract of every other Holyhead Harpy) that the moment they conceived, they were off the team. It was too much of a risk for a pregnant woman to be involved in the violence of a Quidditch game, but she loved the sport so much. She had wanted to spend a few more years playing yet, before she had children. She swallowed angrily. She wouldn't cry – at least, not here. Not in the medical centre...
Kristina looked at her kindly. "This may come as a surprise to you, but we have dealt with unexpected pregnancy on the squad before now," she said drily. "We have a plan for this sort of situation."
"You do?" Ginny asked. She was grateful for the first time to be sat on the bed – the room seemed to be spinning and she felt sure she'd fall over were she to get to her feet.
"We do," Kristina confirmed. "What we'll do is, we'll say you have dragon pox. The slightest hint of a baby and the press'll be all over you and Harry, and I know you hate that. So, we'll tell 'em you have the dragon pox and that you need to take two months off work to recover. If, in that time, you decide to abort the baby, you can come back to work as soon as you're recovered and no one will be any the wiser. You're currently about six weeks along, so if you do decide to continue with your pregnancy, by the time the dragon pox excuse runs out, you'll be well established and you'll have to spill the beans to the world about the baby, because you'll be showing."
Kristina broke off, realising that all this seemed to be going rather fast for Ginny. "Basically, long story short: we tell everyone you're ill to buy you some time. Only myself, Gwynog and the managers know that really, you're pregnant. If you decide to terminate the pregnancy, you can come back at any time, having staged a miraculous recovery from your illness. If not, you've got maternity pay guaranteed for at least a season, and a little while before you have to go official with the news—which I'd imagine could be quite handy for you and Harry."
"Okay," Ginny said. "Okay. I understand. Okay."
"Look, Gin, I know it's a bit of a shock, especially if you're not planning for it," Kristina said earnestly. "But you're married, and Harry loves you so much. There are much worse situations to have a baby in. And if you do decide to terminate – well, you won't get any judgement from me."
Ginny gave a half smile, one hand still pressed to her abdomen. "I need to talk to Harry," she said, more to herself than to anyone else.
"Good idea!" said Kristina warmly. "Look, why don't you use my floo, and go home. I'll sort everything out for you – management, the press, all of it. Just remember: you've got the dragon pox, and you're going to be off for up to two months whilst you recover."
She held out a box of floo powder, and Ginny took a handful gratefully. "Dragon pox, two months," she repeated. "Thanks, Kristina."
"No worries, love," the mediwitch replied, and Ginny disappeared in a swirl of green light.
It was George's turn to pick Roxanne up from her grandparents', which gave Angelina time to slip into the apothecary on her way home. She only had one purchase to make, and the transaction was complete quickly. She walked briskly the few hundred yards down to Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes in the pleasantly warm early summer evening feeling, for the first time in a long time, genuinely content.
She let herself into the shop, and up to the flat, through the back entrance, and was greeted by the sight of George reading Roxanne a story as their daughter shrieked with delight at his ridiculous overacting. She stood in the doorway watching, and was rewarded by George grabbing her around the waist, dipping her and then planting a kiss on her lips at the moment in the story when the hero saves the day.
She laughed and swatted him away, and he picked up Roxanne and placed her on his shoulders, dancing around the small living room with her. "I just want to freshen up – keep her entertained, then I'll start dinner?" she asked.
"'Course love," George replied, his attention already fixed back on their daughter. Angelina headed towards the bathroom, where she drew out the small package from the apothecary. To the tiny vial of clear potion, she added a couple of drops of blood from the finger she had just pricked, then sat down on the edge of the bathtub, turning her back.
It wasn't the first time she had bought such a potion. She and George had been trying for another child for a while now, but for the past few months they had been disappointed. She knew what was supposed to happen with the liquid – if it remained clear, she was not pregnant; if it turned pink, she was having a girl; blue, a boy. She was two weeks late, and she had been feeling quite sick in the mornings lately, but she tried not to get her hopes up. This had happened before, and to no avail. It was unlikely to be different this time, and there was certainly no point getting George's hopes up, too...
She checked her watch. Five minutes was up. She turned.
There, on the edge of the sink, sat a vial of bright blue potion.
Out in the living room-cum-kitchenette, George had already made a start on dinner. "Ah, my-a darling Angelina," he said, in a faux-Italian accent. His grand flourishes amused Roxanne, playing with a set of building blocks on the floor, but made it impossible for him to see that Angelina was hiding something behind her back. "I thought-a we'd have-a spaghetti-a for dinner tonight, non?"
She had meant to say something deep and meaningful, something to prepare him for the news. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, and Roxanne, and the family they had build—we still building—out of the ruins of the war. She had planned this moment for months, each time varying the way she told him, but imagining each scenario more elaborately than the last. But in the end, all she could do was unceremoniously plonk the vial down on the countertop, in between the tin of tomatoes and the saucepan.
She watched as George's expression changed – confusion, to understanding, to joy, to love, to—"Ohh!" she shrieked as he gathered her in his arms, squeezing her at once terribly tightly, but wonderfully gently.
"Is that—" he choked, and she nodded. "A boy?"
"A boy," she confirmed, her own joyful tears now cascading down her face and making it hard to talk. They clung to each other and cried, but it was a happy crying, and Angelina felt better than she had done in months.
"Mumma?" a little voice said, and she felt a hand tug on her shirt. George bent down and picked up Roxanne, and they held her together, between them.
"Everything's okay, Roxie," she said, smoothing her daughter's curls.
"Everything's bloody fantastic," George said, and Roxanne smiled happily. Angelina felt that there had never been—and would never be—a more wonderful moment than right then, with the three of them and the baby in her womb stood together in their kitchen, watching as the evening sunlight shone across Diagon Alley.
"Fred?" George asked, cutting across her thoughts, and she didn't even have to ask what he meant.
"Fred," she nodded, and she realised then that she was wrong. This was now the most perfect moment.
Ginny had nearly eight hours between when she left the Harpies' training ground and when Harry arrived back from work to prepare a way to tell him that they were going to have a baby, and she still hadn't worked out how she was going to do it by the time he walked through the front door that evening.
The day had alternately flown by and crawled by – she hadn't been able to settle at anything. She'd tried to clean the house the Muggle way, to keep her mind occupied and distract her, but got bored halfway through and finished the task in seconds using magic. It was the same with making dinner, degnoming the garden and she couldn't even concentrate long enough to read an article in Which Broomstick?.
She half expected to be suddenly ravaged by nausea, or to have an inexplicable craving for some ridiculous food, like seaweed dipped in chocolate, or even to start crying for no real reason and sob wretchedly for half an hour before announcing that she felt perfectly fine again, like Audrey had often done when she'd been pregnant with Molly. But all the things pregnant women were supposed to do or feel seemed to be passing her by, and she felt completely normal.
That could be, she mused, because she was only six weeks pregnant – she didn't know when the traditional symptoms of pregnancy were supposed to kick in, but she knew that she was only just expecting. Maybe all this would come later...and she supposed that, if it did, she would be longing for the time when she wasn't constantly nauseous, or a spotty, hormonal wreck. She should make the most of it.
She would have to get a book or two from Flourish and Blotts – something to tell her how pregnancies progressed, and what babies needed when they were born. Hermione could come with her – she loved shopping for books. Hermione actually probably already had a book on pregnancy. She had books on everything...
This thought made her laugh somewhat hysterically, and the sound covered up the noises Harry made as he returned from work. "What's so funny, Ginny?" he asked, poking his head round the kitchen door.
Ginny jumped guiltily, as though she was a naughty schoolgirl caught breaking the rules. "N-nothing!" she stuttered, but Harry seemed preoccupied and didn't notice her odd behavouir.
"Honestly, I've had such a rubbish day. We're still processing all the paperwork and everything associated with Yaxley's arrest from six months ago! I know we spent nearly six years trying to catch the guy, but that's starting to seem easy compared to everything we have to sort out now. The Ministry are such a bunch of...of...paper pushers!" He paused, letting out a frustrated breath, then visibly took himself in hand, plastering a smile on his face and coming to stand next to his wife. "But you don't want to hear about all that," he said, slipping his arms around her waist. "I'll shut up now, and we can have a nice evening to oursel—Gin? What's up?"
She had stiffened in his arms, and he could tell at once that there was something wrong. "Ginny? Is everything okay? Your parents...nothing's wrong, is it?"
His alarm was growing by the second, and Ginny realised she had to say something to reassure him quickly. "No, no, everyone's fine," she said. "Sit down." She pointed to the chair, and Harry's eyes grew even wider. "No, I promise, it's nothing like that. Nothing bad. Just...sit down. I need to tell you something."
Obediently, Harry sat and she took the chair opposite him, holding his hand across the kitchen table. "I had a routine medical today – you know how it is, I have more of the damned things than you do," she began. "And I...they found out that I...that we are going to have a baby."
Harry looked at her blankly. "I'm pregnant," Ginny said, surprised at his lack of reaction. "I...we're having a baby." Her husband opened his mouth and closed it a few times.
"A real baby?" he managed to croak out, after a moment.
"I should think so..." Ginny said drily.
"But how?" he gasped. Ginny, remembering her own shock at finding out the news, bit back the sarcastic retort that was on the tip of her tongue.
"Well, I'm on the Potion, but Kristina—you know, the mediwitch—she says it's still not a fool proof form of contraception. There's something like a slightly less than one per cent chance that you might get pregnant if you're taking it, and...well, I guess we're that less than one per cent," she shrugged. "Plus, I'm something like six weeks along – it's still really early, so I haven't had any symptoms yet. I hadn't even really registered that my period was slightly late."
"I...a baby," Harry said. "I...I'm going to be a Dad!"
"Well, about that...I think it might be my other husband's," Ginny admitted, before laughing at the look of confusion, horror, then dawning understanding on Harry's face. He joined in her laughter, and they clung to each other across the table, nervously giggling and staring at each other in wonder.
"A baby," Harry said again.
"A baby," Ginny agreed.
"A baby," Harry repeated.
"Our baby," Ginny murmured.
"Our baby," Harry said.
"Our—no. This has to stop, or we'll be here all night parroting each other," Ginny laughed.
"You're right," Harry said, getting to his feet. "This calls for a toast! I'll get some champagne!"
"Harry," Ginny said pointedly.
"Oh right, yes," Harry said, blushing slightly. "Better be pumpkin juice, then!"
For some reason, this struck her as hysterically funny, and her peels of laughter made Harry laugh, too. Soon, they were both doubled over, clutching their sides and wiping tears of laughter from their faces. Ginny supposed it was the shock – but still, it seemed to be a good sort of shock.
The baby was completely out of the blue, and there would be so much to do so suddenly to prepare for its arrival – she'd need to sort out her job; how to tell her family; what to do about a nursery and all the associated baby paraphernalia; how to handle the press, who would have an absolute field day with the Boy Who Lived's baby...but all that could wait until later.
She had, briefly, considered the possibility of terminating the pregnancy if Harry had been less than enthused about the idea of having a baby, but looking at the utter joy on his face, she knew that was out of the question. Besides, once she had gotten over the initial shock, she found herself feeling quite excited about the prospect of being a mother. Yes, there was an awful lot to do before the baby arrived, but she had nearly nine months to do it, and more importantly, she had Harry to do it with her.
She closed her eyes, and allowed Harry's strong arms to envelop her in a hug. This happiness, this feeling of complete delight...this would be her new Patronus memory, she knew.
Ron awoke slowly on Saturday morning, rolling over and reaching out, still very groggy with sleep, to Hermione.
His outstretched arm hit the mattress, and he blinked, suddenly much more awake. Hermione's side of the bed had been slept in, but she was no longer there and the mattress felt cold – she had clearly been up for a while. He glanced at his watch – it was only half-past nine, still quite early for a weekend. Maybe she'd gone to make a start on breakfast?
He yawned, stretched and rolled out of bed, fishing around for the t shirt he knew was on the floor somewhere. He'd go to help her cook. Last time he'd helped her make breakfast, it wasn't just food he'd gotten out of it... Grinning at the memory, Ron pulled the t shirt on over his head, and slipped out of the bedroom.
Just as he did so, the door to the bathroom opened and Hermione stepped out. Her face was deathly pale except where it was streaked pink with tears, her hair was pulled back roughly into a sloppy ponytail, from which strands were escaping haphazardly and she was biting her lip so hard he was surprised it wasn't bleeding. In short, she looked dreadful – dreadfully ill.
Ron hurried over to her in alarm. "Hermione! What's wrong?" he asked, gathering her into his arms. She leaned into him, letting out one small sob. "Ssh, it's okay," he said soothingly, trying to work out what could possibly be the problem. She'd been pefectly fine last night, and if she'd picked up some kind of bug from work, she was usually the type to just get on with things, rather than mope about feeling sorry for herself whilst ill. He'd not seen her this upset in a long, long while, and it scared him.
"I'm...I'm bleeding," Hermione said, drawing back. Ron looked at her in confusion, as though suddenly expecting to see rivers of blood pouring off one of her limbs. "I mean, not normal bleeding. More than normal. And it's not the right time, and I've got this terrible ache and...Ron, I think we need to get to St. Mungo's."
So, this is a new project I'm super excited about! I've been planning this one for ages, and I'm so glad I finally get to share it with you all. This is a post-war, canon-compliant story, featuring most of the Weasleys and their friends, though the main focus will be on Harry and Ginny, and Ron and Hermione – so if you're not a fan of either of those couples, it's probably time to back out now.
I'm aiming to make this as realistic as possible with regard to the whole pregnancy thing, but I've never had a baby and am relying on the internet for most of my info. So if you have been pregnant and want to correct me on something, feel free. Also, for "the Potion" read "the Pill" – I imagine witches could brew up a contraceptive potion that's basically the same as the contraceptive pill, which would mean that yes, there is a tiny, tiny chance you could get pregnant even if you're taking it correctly, as with the Pill.
I'd love to know what you thought of this, so please do drop me a review. I shall update this every Wednesday!