Nothing So Tender
The room was somber, perfectly still save for the crackling fire in the brick hearth. Ginny Weasley sat on the beige couch rubbing her hands over her not-yet-deflated stomach, Though I suppose it's Ginny Potter now. Her newborn baby lay in the quilted comfort of the basket she wove during her first months.
Hermione sat in the lounge chair across from her, her stomach just beginning to swell from the affections of Draco Malfoy, although the affections borne in the loins more than those of the heart. She was knitting a basket just like Ginny's.
"It's odd," Ginny mused, "I still have the cravings like I did while carrying it."
"What is it this time?"
"Pickles. Sometimes I crave other things, but in the end it all comes back to pickles. They're so salty and the way they crunch when I bite into them…"
"Please stop talking about pickles; they make me think of fetuses."
"My mind must not see as yours does; our inner eyes must differ."
"No, think about it. They lie within us, floating in a mixture of salt, water, and waste for months until they are prepared to be served to the world on a swaddling-cloth platter."
"The analogy is disturbing, although not without merit."
"I've just started getting mine; the cravings, I mean."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, filet mignon. I have no idea why, since I don't think I've ever had it. Maybe it's just the name my mind loves. Maybe it will pass, but maybe I will go mad until I try it, and maybe when I do I will hate it but my mind will crave it still until I tear apart with indecision."
"…It's been snowing pretty hard lately. I wonder if we will be able to go outside for the next few days. The trees must be crying."
"They say that there is nothing so tender as filet mignon. But that name, French for "cute cut." Why are we so attracted to eating what we find cute? Maybe we wish to eliminate the competition. Or is it because we feel that we are not cute enough? That through consumption we could somehow assume the traits of the object and become cute ourselves?"
"Look at that snowbank out there, Hermione. It looks just like a white elephant."
"So it does. Oh God, I am bloated like a whale!" she sobbed, reaching across to grab Ginny's shoulder for support. The basket was jarred by her elbow, and the baby rolled out onto the floor, crying softly.
"Oh dear, you must be more careful. They say that there is nothing so tender as a newborn baby."
"I'll grow so huge I fear I'll explode before I can give birth to a child. If the snow doesn't clear up soon I may not be able to make it out of the door to get to the hospital."
"It doesn't grow that fast; you should be fine. Lie down and try to be more careful; you don't want to destroy the little life inside you."
"Exactly; it's a part of me that might die. A part of me that no matter what I do must be expelled and live on its own; it is a part of myself that I will lose forever as surely as if it had been cloven from my side."
"It is a sweet torture that we must all endure."
"But what if there were a way to get it all back? To take the essence stolen from you and become whole once again? I don't want to spend the rest of my life as an empty shell, with the wind howling through the hole where my soul once resided."
"But we can. It all comes back to filet mignon."
"You know, they say there is nothing so tender…"
The baby screams once as the rolling pin descends, pushing a curved indentation in the side of its skull. Then, the work is left to the forks.
"You were right," Ginny sighs. "There is nothing so tender."
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY: Don't write about the married lives of fictional couples in a boring manner. Leave that up to the authors. If you do choose to write fanfiction, then remember kids, make it awesome.
