Motherhood

I could hear the tinkling of laughter from another room as I sat on the toilet, trying to unsuccessfully fight the tears that were falling from my eyes. I sniffed, wiping my nose with the back of my hand and tried to calm myself by taking deep calculated breaths but it wasn't helping.

Panic filled my body as I gripped my striped blue-and-white t-shirt, dropping my head to my knees to lessen the sound of my heart beating inside my head. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't handle this by myself but I couldn't tell anyone either.

"Luce?" A knock at the door made me jolt.

I clumsily wiped at my tears and ripped off a piece of toilet paper from the roll next to me, dabbing my eyes.

"Luce? Are you alright? You've been in there for quite some time."

I nodded my head even though I knew my cousin Hugo couldn't see me. I needed to pull myself together. I was an adult. I was a grown woman.

"I'm fine," I responded slowly.

I wasn't fine. My lower lip quivered as I placed my hands on my mouth, trying to stop the hysterical scream and sob that wanted to come out. I felt like falling to the floor and laying down on our blue rug forever.

"I've made you some tea. Come out before it gets cold. It'll make that stomachache of yours disappear in jiff," he said softly.

I placed my hands on my stomach and looked down, peering at the white stick on the floor near my feet. Two faint pink lines had appeared moments before. They signified my worst fear—I was pregnant.

I shook my head and grabbed another piece of toilet paper, wrapping the pregnancy test up and shoving the stick inside my bra.

I wasn't ready to be a mother.

I didn't want to have a child.

The thought terrified me.

-X-

Sometimes things happen that make you reevaluate your life. Freshly graduated from Hogwarts all I really cared about was drinking my weight in alcohol, scrounging up extra money to buy really cute shoes and men.

Of course men are hard to come by. A man you find in a pub isn't a man you bring home to mummy and daddy.

I take them home anyway (sans parental supervision of course). We usually end up in a tangled half-naked mess. My blouse about to go over my head, red bra exposed (because red is supposed to be alluring, according to an insert in Witch Weekly) when the front door opens and I have to hastily proceed to pull my blouse down and do a quick side-along apparition that almost always ends up in my fringe getting splinched. The nameless bloke—because what's in name—almost always runs off before I can suggest some fun in the woods.

No one wants to get poison ivy or a rash for a quick shag with Lucy Weasley.

"Let's practice again, shall we?" my flat mate and cousin, Hugo Weasley suggests.

If anything he has been my birth control for the past few months. He always comes home just in the nick of time causing the above mentioned madness to ensue. He just had to take a short holiday with his father. If he hadn't left me alone I wouldn't be in my current predicament.

He should have gotten me a sitter.

Hugo has been up with me for the past four hours, sitting on the toilet while I flop around on the floor like a dead fish, trying to get my bearings. He was supposed to be at work an hour ago but decided he couldn't leave me alone in my current state. Apparently arithmancing could wait.

I suppose he was afraid I was going to go mental and rummage around the kitchen for a fork and fork my eye out or something. I've never been one to act appropriately during dire situations. My maternal grandmother passed away a few years ago and instead of dealing with my issues I opted to get a tattoo of her face on my lower back. She came out looking like a prison inmate I used to see on the telly sometimes. My father forced me to get it removed the Muggle way because I was sixteen and he wanted to teach me a lesson.

"It didn't happen by accident," I begin again. Hugo groans, running his hands through his reddish-brown hair.

"It did happen by accident. Lucy, let's pretend I'm your father. Do you really think I would want to hear that? Take this seriously."

I nodded my head but his words weren't really registering. I knew I shouldn't have told him anything but he held my hair up and away from my face when I was hunched over the toilet this morning. He even laid on the cold floor with me and didn't judge me as I told him my story and ugly cried into our rug.

"Right…Daddy, listen…"

I'm an eighteen-year-old woman who still calls their father, 'Daddy.' Merlin, this wasn't going to go well.

"I'm pregnant."

Hugo's brown eyes widened from shock and he shook his hands, trying to get into his character. His lanky upper body leaned back onto the wall and he yelped, trying to do a poor imitation of my father.

"P-pregnant? No! No! That can't be!" he shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "Not my daughter. Not my angel. Not my baby. I won't allow it! Audrey, we're going to need a tower. Lock Lucy up and throw away the key. I'm so ashamed of you," he whispered darkly. "How could you be so stupid?"

I groaned from the floor and smacked my hands over my eyes. Maybe his impersonation wasn't so poor after all.

"Do you really think he's going to react like that?" I asked quietly, trying to keep the bile that was rising in my throat down. The morning sickness was starting to kick in again.

"Just wait until you tell him who the father is," he said with a grim smile.

I scoffed and then lurched forward, signaling for Hugo to get off the toilet, unable to keep the bile at bay any longer.

-X-

Like I said, it didn't happen by accident (no matter what lies I tell my parents). The after effects were an accident but the deed itself…well, it was very much desired.

I confess I might have talked myself up quite a bit in the beginning. I might sound like a loose woman but my experience in sexual intercourse is rather limited. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a prude and by no means am I completely innocent. I've had my hand down a number of bloke's trousers but that's where the action usually ends.

I had known for a while I wanted to lose my virginity. At Hogwarts, all of the other girls in my dormitory and classes talked in hushed tones about sex. It was a magical experience. Something completely out of this world. It was as if once it happened they became women, blossoming before my eyes, wiser beyond their years. I yearned to experience that and to be part of the inner circle. To feel like a woman instead of a little girl.

It just didn't occur to me that with sex came responsibilities. I didn't expect sex to mean morning sickness and a thing growing inside of me.

Because seriously—who gets pregnant their first time? There has got to be a rule against that or something.

Maybe I did it wrong.

Maybe I wasn't meant to have sex because I was Lucy Weasley, blonde haired Lucy who liked to drink her weight in firewhiskey and sing dirty songs about salamanders. I worked at St. Mungo's as a cheery welcome witch who cursed like a sailor once her shift was over. I was awkward. I was weird. I was meant to keep my legs closed.

Even though I don't want to place blame on anyone if I did this would be my father's fault. He is so unbelievably uptight. He did a good job pretending I do not have a functional reproductive system. There were never any talks between the two of us. Mum isn't any better. It was like we had this unspoken agreement, legal document or not, that I had to decided to break on my end by getting knocked up.

"Pregnant…Lucy…that's…"

I stood before my parents shaking like a leaf. Dad was the color of a very ripe tomato while mum stood next to him, checking his pulse, fearing he was going to have a heart attack.

"This is a joke…it has to be a joke…"

I shook my head sadly.

"I'm too young to be a grand…no…"

Now that was a joke. My father was upset because he was going to be a grandfather. It wasn't like he had to push the thing out of him or let it bake inside his stomach for the next nine months.

With child. Knocked up. For nine months thing—no, a person, would be growing inside of my body and then one day when it had enough fun making me expand every which way it possibly could it would come out screaming its lungs off with hair (possibly), fingernails (definitely) and expect its mummy and daddy to take care of it.

"When did you even start having sex?" mum asked, nervously running a hand through her long blonde hair.

My father gaped at her and started to fidget with his gold spectacles, taking them off and placing them back on repeatedly.

"Do not answer that."

I wasn't going to. Really. I wasn't planning on revealing the gritty details to my parents. I had a few bruises the next morning and the entire sexual act was just awkward. I'm not even sure if I was any good or if I liked it. I don't have anything else to compare it to. There were limbs everywhere and I was sweating in places I never knew that could sweat before. Oh, and don't get me started on the noises.

They still haunt me at night.

"We have a right to know," Mum responded, cutting me off before I could speak.

I didn't know what else to say. Maybe I shouldn't have started off with, 'I'm pregnant. Oh, Happy Birthday, Daddy!'

I turned my head to the left to seek some sort of comfort from my redheaded silent sister. Molly just shrugged her shoulders and then squeezed my hand, not saying anything remotely helpful.

I think they're all taking it rather well, considering.

"We don't want to know anything," my father said sharply.

I wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Instead, I was staring at the kitchen table we were standing around. In the center of the table sat a round birthday cake with white frosting. On it the candles were melting, wax was messing up the words that originally read, 'Happy Birthday Percy,' in red. Instead it looked like, 'Apy Bthdoy Poncy.'

"Percy," Mum said quietly, "our daughter is pregnant."

"Don't say that."

"She has been complaining about smells and rushing off to the loo with her hand on her mouth after every family meal."

That was true. I could barely keep anything down most days. The Healers were absolute liars. Morning sickness doesn't just happen in the morning. It was more like an all day sickness.

"Maybe she just doesn't fancy your cooking anymore."

Mum scowled and I shuffled closer to my sister. Molly patted my back for extra support. All the talk about food was making me nauseous.

"Are you really insulting my cooking at a time like this?"

"Mum—" Molly tried to interrupt, waving a hand in the air. They ignored her.

"Because if you are—"

Dad rolled his eyes and mumbled something under his breath. "I have to eat it," he snapped and then turned his attention back towards me. "How did this happen?

I shrugged. Well, I initiated it. I unbuttoned his trousers with my teeth. If I closed my eyes I could still feel him trembling slightly as my cold fingers touched his skin to pull down his boxers.

"Well, I unbuttoned his—"

"I know how, Lucy!" he shouted with horror.

Well, it seems everyone knew how except me.

Author's Note: I've been wanting to write a pregnancy fic for the past few years but I could never come up with a plot. This story is pretty much complete. I was originally going to make it a one-shot, about 10,000 words but I figured I'd break it up so it would be easier to read. I know there are lots of pregnancy stories out there so I'm hoping my story doesn't bore you. It's going to be a tad bit different from the others out there. I think once you read chapter two you'll realize why. This story is going to be only three or four chapters exploring the other options out there. Please let me know what you think in a comment below. Thanks for reading!