A new-found use for beetles
Irma hated noise and dirt. The last few weeks, the had been more of that than ever before, with all those Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students swarming her library. None of Irma's pet peeves, however, could compare to her loathing of insects. A particularly nasty specimen, a huge beetle, was creeping over her desk, strutting over the forms the librarian was filling out. It looked as if the thing was reading them. She lifted her hand, preparing to squash the animal between her fingers.
Irma got knocked off her chair when the beetle transformed. When she got up, she could see a blonde woman sitting on her desk, protecting her face with long, mannish hands with bright red fingernails.
"Don't kill me!" she shrieked.
"Skeeter!" Irma yelled, "Rita Skeeter? How did you get here?" The older woman's eyes narrowed. She suddenly knew how the journalist got on her desk. A mischievous grin appeared on her thin face. "So you're an animagus! And I thought I knew all the names of the registered animagi in this country. "
The blood drew away from Rita's face.
"I think I'd better report this to the Ministry," the older woman continued. "Who would have thought! That's how you've been finding out all those dirty little secrets."
"You aren't going to turn me in, are you?" Rita did her best to look composed and defiant, but her shaking hands gave her away.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't do it," Irma sneered. "Do you know how much I loathe insects? Especially...beetles." She spat out the last word.
"Beetles have their uses, did you know?" replied Rita.
"Of course they have! Maybe I should transform you back into your animagus form and give you to Severus. He told me yesterday he was running out of beetles." Irma was positively gloating over the horrified look on Rita's face.
"I... I meant other uses!" Rita stammered.
"What other uses could beetles possibly have?" Irma asked.
"I'll show you if you let me go," Rita pleaded.
Irma wasn't impressed "Why would I agree to this?"
"You'll see," was the answer.
Irma started to gain weight. She couldn't understand how that was possible, since she'd always been one of those fortunate people who could eat whatever they wanted without ever gaining a pound. Three weeks later, she woke up at night with terrible cramps. After five hours of agony, the reason for the cramps and the weight gain appeared. Irma Pince had laid an egg.
At first, she was appalled by the monstrosity that had come out of her body, but gradually, the thing stared to grow on her. She could feel there was life under the smooth surface of the egg. By day, she put a brooding spell on it. At night she took it with her in bed. The presence of the round shape against her body was soothing. Six months later, the egg hatched. A perfectly healthy baby came out of it.
It took Irma some time to get used to sleeping alone again. Poppy had to prescribe her dreamless sleep potion. Severus brought her the potion every night, making silly jokes about 'post-hatching depression' and 'that she should be glad her daughter had skipped the larva stage.'
Priscilla Pince always kept wondering, however, who her father was. Her mother said she had no father, but she didn't believe it. All kids had fathers, hadn't they? Eventually, she got used to the funny looks people who met her first usually gave her. After all, most wizards had seen weirder things than girls with antennae.