Entry for "Divination" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"
Task #3:
Question: Am I pregnant? If not, when will I conceive?
Instead of writing about someone struggling to conceive yet desperately wanting a baby, I would like you to write about the opposite. Perhaps your character has had a pregnancy scare and is trying to work out the best option should they be pregnant? Do they want to get rid of the baby (by abortion or adoption) or try and make things worse? Write about someone who doesn't want a baby, but ends up in this situation.
Min 700 words.
Entry for "Hopscotch" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"
Prompts: climbing (action), kiss (word), posture (word)
Maybe I will continue this, maybe not. I am really not good at multi-chaps, so maybe I will do this in oneshots, but I cannot promise anything.
Rolanda Hooch had been always pretty sure about what she wanted and what she did not wanted at the certain stages in her life that she had been at.
During her professional Quidditch career she had been asked by the reporters of various magazines how she thought about marriage and children, and her answer had always been a loud laugh and the explanation that she would make a horrible mother and that she was an athlete with all her heart. Children were not planned, and really, the thought of having a baby had secretly scared her back then.
Then, after a devastating season with injuries and horrible results, she had ended her professional career and had accepted Albus Dumbledore's offer to teach the Flying classes at Hogwarts and take care of all Quidditch matters.
And though it had been a real change in her life that had brought a lot of constancy, her general posture on family and children had not changed. She was young, she was wild, a little bit of a workaholic sometimes and she did not plan to let herself be restrained by the duties of a mother. Rolanda could not imagine to live without her spontaneous trips to Dublin or London to shake up the pubs, the nighttime flies she would sometimes do when she had had a stressful day... or just staying up very late to walk around the castle or (at least at home) watch TV, the only muggle technology she used.
And well, the most important thing probably was that she did not have a man to have a child with. Of course a woman like her was able to get one pretty fast – she was young, she was pretty and a little bit famous too – but the problem was that they all were one night wonders. In the past, she had rarely met someone who had had potential for a long-term relationship, and well, these relationships had still broken apart pretty soon. Rolanda assumed that with the right man, she probably would consider having a family someday, but there was no one like that in her life at the moment.
Though, there was something in her life at the moment. She had a "thing" with her colleague Severus Snape, Hogwarts' potions master, fright of the students, and master of sarcasm.
She only called it a "thing" because she did not know what it really was. They sometimes flirted through sarcastic banter, sometimes they did fight because they knew exactly how to trigger the other one and because they just wanted to scream at somebody. And well, they also did sleep with each other.
This particular aspect of their "thing" had started pretty innocently, with a kiss they had accidentally shared during an heated argument about Quidditch, a topic they had fought over pretty often as Severus usually always doubted that his Slytherins had lost because the other team had been better.
But well, it had only stayed innocent for a few seconds, if she was completely honest with herself.
Maybe it had been the situation back then, or their constant fights had already indicated what their connection would turn into from the beginning. In any case, Rolanda could not deny that Severus Snape had more secret abilities than anybody would think.
At first she had thought that it would stay a one-time shag in a broom closet, a very good one, indeed, but nothing to be repeated. However, they both had felt drawn back towards the other one in the following days, and it had not taken long until they started to see each other regularly – Rolanda was now sometimes joking about how sexually starved they had been back then, barely able to hold themselves back from jumping at each other, even in front of their colleagues.
Over the time, the "thing" had established itself to be an odd mix between "platonic friends with benefits" and... well, whatever people were called who did not wanted to admit that they were friends and felt a connection, but still sought comfort in the other person.
Whenever Rolanda had a hard day, she would go and let Severus cheer her up with his dry sarcasm, and Severus, well, even the fright of the dungeons needed someone to talk to from time to time.
Everything could have stayed the same forever, really. Neither Rolanda nor Severus seemed to doubt their unconventional relationship, and their colleagues and friends did not comment it as long as they were convinced that they both were happy with the status quo.
Well, until that one day on which Rolanda realised that her period was overdue. Not for a few days, but for two weeks, something that had never happened to her before.
On that morning, her thoughts had started to circle around, while her anxiety level had been literally climbing up the Astronomy Tower.
Hell, she did not know what to do with her fear. It was brooding deep inside of her and made her feel restless, the reason why she kept getting up from the couch to start pacing around in her living room, only to sit down a minute later or so.
Probably she really should go and visit Poppy in the Hospital Wing so she would finally know the truth, but the thing was that she was also afraid of hearing the truth, or at least of hearing the truth that the test Poppy would take was positive. And well, after that, it would not stay a secret very long, as this was an information Poppy, one of the Hogwarts staff's main gossipers, would not be able to hold back very long.
What if she really was pregnant?! What would she do then?!
She did not want a baby, she did not want a family, not now! But she was more than sure that she would never be able to do an abortion, and well, if she really was pregnant, then she would be stuck with a baby. And the last thing she would ever want was to force a child to grow up with a mother that had not wanted it, but had conceived it by accident.
Rolanda's eyes widened as she suddenly realised that there were more problems to this than the baby itself.
There was the father, of course.
What would Severus say if she really was pregnant? He would surely want to be part of the decisions around the child, and she could not deny that he would also have the right to do so, as he obviously was part of the creation of that little life that maybe was growing inside of her.
This situation was just too much for her. Rolanda had no idea what she was supposed to do now, and this horrible feeling of helplessness caused her body to shiver. Feeling as if her legs could give in any second, Rolanda sank down onto the couch again and covered her face with her hands, taking deep breaths to calm herself down.
She had to try and think straight now, no matter how hard it seemed to her in this moment. However, it did not seem that she was really doing logical steps, as she did not went to see Poppy – no, what she did instead was using her free day to visit a muggle drug store to buy a pregnancy test.
It really was irrational, she knew that, but she just was afraid of what Poppy might say, so she preferred this secret method, though she knew that Poppy's methods were way more certain.
Preparing the test itself did only take a few minutes, but after taking it, Rolanda had been sitting on her couch, simply staring at the small stick that was lying on the console next to her bathroom door. She was unable to move, it was hard to breathe through the subtle panic that had built up inside of her, and all she could think about was the big "what if" question.
An hour had passed until Rolanda was able to stand up and walk towards the console, feeling as if she was walking the hardest five steps in her life. Her feet felt much heavier than they had when she had played in the Irish National Team and had felt sick on an important game, and her heart was racing as she reached for the little stick, her hands shaking so much that it nearly slipped through her fingers.
"Shit," she cursed lowly as she saw the result, and she stumbled back to the couch, her sight starting to blurr. The stick fell from her hand and a dry sob escaped her as the realisation hit her harder than a bludger, while the stick clattered onto the floor.
Positive.
She was pregnant.
From Severus Snape, her colleague. Someone she did not even have a real relationship with.
This only could be a bad dream, yes, she was imagining all of this... In a few minutes she would surely wake up and laugh about this weird dream...
There was no way she would be able to tell Severus, no. There was no way she would be able to tell anyone!
Tears started to fill her eyes and fear took over, started to influence her decisions from this moment on, causing them to be irrational. In this moment, Rolanda decided that she would try to keep that baby a secret, not matter what she would be forced to do for that, and all of that because she was afraid, afraid of how people would react.