Disclaimer- Don't own them. (sigh) Not making the millions for them, either.
March-
Harry woke up to the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut, followed soon afterwards by Hermione retching. He was used to it by now, she'd been doing this more frequently over the last three weeks. He got up, slid his glasses on and went to see if he could get her anything to help her feel better.
What worried him the most was not that she was getting sick, but the reason 'why' she was sick was still a mystery to the three of them. They were no closer now, than a month ago, to finding out who the father of Hermione's baby was. He walked into the kitchen, finding Ron standing by the toaster with a slice of bread in one hand, examining the lever on the front of the appliance.
"Ron, don't tell me you forgot how to use it again," Harry chuckled. Ron turned his head and grinned sheepishly.
"Sort of. I was making some toast for Hermione, and I can't remember which end of the bread you put in first." Harry burst out laughing. It had been Hermione's idea for the three of them to move into this Muggle flat, given its proximity to the Ministry of Magic and Diagon Alley, but even after three years of living with and using Muggle appliances, Ron still became perplexed about the simplest tasks.
"It doesn't matter, you just drop it into the slots." Ron inserted the bread, and stared at it, waiting for it to start toasting, then remembered he had to push the lever down. When that had been done, he gave a small whoop of triumph as he moved to the fridge to get the ingredients for his own breakfast. Harry's laughter grew as he watched his friend attempt to figure out the stove next. Hermione came in, still looking a bit queasy, just as her toast popped up.
"Urgh!" she groaned. "You're not going to make me eat that, are you?" Ron nodded as he put the toast on a plate and set it before her when she sat down.
"You have to eat something, Hermione," he said. She closed her eyes with repulsion. Harry put his hand over hers.
"I know you don't want to eat it, but Ron's right. Plus, the doctor did say that dry toast would help settle your stomach." She picked up the toast, gingerly nibbled, waited to see if it would stay down. Upon learning it would, she slowly ate the rest. Ron nodded with satisfaction and returned to the stove where the water for his tea had started boiling. Hermione asked if he would make her some as well.
"Herbal, Ron," Harry reminded him, earning himself a glare from Hermione. "You know it's better for the baby, and the doctor said that you're under too much stress as it is. The caffeine could only make it worse." She nodded resignedly, laying a hand on the tiny swelling. It was still hard to believe, even with the morning sickness in full swing, that she, Hermione Granger, frizzy-haired know-it-all from Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic's most adamant Magical Creature Liason with no one currently in her life, was going to have a baby.
"Here you go," Ron said, setting a steaming mug in front of her. He inhaled his cereal and tea, then put his dishes in the sink and excused himself to get dressed for the day. Harry looked at his watch as he finished his own breakfast and did the same. Hermione sat alone at the table for a while, wondering still on the matter of her child's father. It occupied her mind almost constantly, giving her headaches when she tried to remember who she possibly could have been with.
She reasoned that he must have been horrible in bed for her not to be able to even have a blury memory. She shook her head and took her cup and plate to the sink before heading out to the living room. Ron called his goodbyes as he hurried out the door to Quidditch practice, and Harry followed a second later on the way to the Auror Department in the Ministry.
"I'll see you later, Hermione," he said as he headed out the door. She waved to him and flopped on the couch. She had the week off and nothing to do but obssess over what she couldn't remember. It was driving her crazy. And that just made her... She jumped off the couch and bolted for the bathroom, making it just in time to lose her meager breakfast. She groaned when she finished, wishing her morning sickness would go away sooner rather than later.
"Hermione?"
"In the bathroom, Ginny," she replied, flushing the toilet with a grimace. Her friend appeared in the doorway, a concerned expression on her face.
"Are you O.K.?" Hermione nodded. "You sure? I mean the wedding plans can wait a few days until you feel better."
"It's going to take more than a few days for me to start feeling better, and 'then' I'm going to start gaining a lot of weight." Ginny laughed.
"You make it sound like you were pregnant." Hermione, realizing now that she was going to have to tell someone outside of this flat eventually before the press heard it first, looked Ginny straight in the eye.
"That's because I 'am'," she said. The tall redhead's eyes widened. "I swore Harry and Ron to secrecy until I was ready to tell someone, and considering the fact that I'm going to start to show in a matter of weeks, I figured I'd better get it over with."
"But I thought you weren't with Josh any more?"
"I'm not. And before you ask, even though we 'have' slept in each other's bedrooms when we're working on a project, the baby isn't Harry's, either. As a matter of fact, I have no idea who it could be."
"Hermione! I didn't know you slept around that much!" Ginny exclaimed.
"I don't, Ginevra Weasley! You know me better than that. That's the problem. I haven't been with 'anyone' since I broke up with Josh, and I'm due in August, so that would mean it would have had to have happened in November at the latest. That was about three months after we split." Ginny was thoughtful.
"Are you 'sure' it isn't Harry's?" she asked cautiously. Hermione crossed her arms and nodded.
"We haven't 'been' together that way."
"You know you want to, though." Hermione blushed. Ginny was the only person she could confide in besides her mother about how she felt about Harry.
"Yes, I do. But that's not going to happen now. He's not going to want to be with someone who has a kid, especially when it's not his." She turned and looked at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. "He and Ron are just as confused about this as I am, but they don't have the problem of being the one carrying and raising the baby without another parent. He's not going to want me now that I'm having someone's baby. Someone that must have been so bad that I can't remember anything about going to bed with him!" She slammed her fist on the edge of the sink with frustration.
Her shoulders slumped as she finally voiced her worst fears to her friend. "I may have lost him forever, but I won't get rid of the baby to fix that."
"I wouldn't have even suggested it!" Ginny said with horror. "And as for the other part of it, are you really so sure that he wouldn't want you 'and' the baby? I've seen the way he looks at you, Hermione. Talk to him. You might be surprised." Hermione looked unsurely at her. "Now come on. We have some wedding shopping to do." This gained a smile.
"You're right. Maybe some fresh air would do me good. But you're wrong about Harry." She moved past Ginny to her room to change for the day.
"Not when he told me how he feels about you, I'm not," Ginny whispered as Hermione's bedroom door closed with a soft click.
Slamming her purse down on the coffee table, Hermione let out a roar of rage, bringing both Harry and Ron running into the living room at top speed.
"What's wrong?" Ron asked. "Is the baby O.K.?"
"The baby's fine. It's today's 'Daily Prophet' that's not." She thrust the paper out and spun away in fury when Harry took it and read the headline out loud.
"'Hermione Granger-Bookworm, Magical Creature Liason, Friend to The Boy Who Lived, and...Mother?" He read the byline. "Looks like Rita Skeeter's really back at the Prophet, now," he said scanning the article quickly. "But Hermione, it doesn't say anything here that isn't true."
"It doesn't, huh?" she fumed, spinning to face her friend. "Third column, halfway down." Harry dropped his eyes to the spot, and his jaw fell open.
"What?" Ron was alarmed at the expression his friend had at the realization of what had been put into the story.
Harry closed his mouth tightly, glanced toward Ron, then Hermione, cleared his throat and read, "'Sources say that if Miss Granger 'is' expecting, she may very well be possibly bringing another generation of Potters into the world, as it is most likely that Harry is the baby's father, due to the fact that the two share a small Muggle flat with their friend from Hogwarts, Ron Weasley, and when the duo are working together on projects for the Ministry, they tend to share each other's room for the night. Hmmmm.' Why does everyone automatically think that 'I'm' the father? Hermione and I have never slept together, not once, and now I'm resposible for her being pregnant?"
"What's more, is that I never said a 'word' to Rita about my pregnancy, Harry. The only other person that knows besides the three of us is Ginny, and I was talking very softly to her about it while we were shopping the other day in Diagon Alley. That means Rita is back to her old tricks of eavesdropping on private conversations as a 'beetle'!" Ron glanced uneasily between the other two.
"You guys aren't going to do anything to make this worse, are you? You know how Rita gets. She'd only start twisting what you say and make it sound as if you're confessing to everything."
"That's the point, Ron, there's nothing to confess! Harry's totally innocent, and Rita's article is making sound as if we've been sleeping together since Hogwarts. And how does she know about Harry and I sharing a bed when we're working? That's never left this flat. No one says anything about it anywhere else. Harry, what?" She had noticed his changes in expression and posture.
He shrugged guiltily.
"Actually, I 'did' say something to someone outside the flat." Hermione threw her hands into the air. "It was only to Fred and George about what you had said last month, and I didn't tell them about the baby, just that Ron was asking about whether we had slept together, or 'slept' together." He sat down heavily on the couch. "Someone must have overheard us, most likely Rita, knowing her. Hermione, I'm sorry, I really am."
"There's not much that can be done about that now, Harry. We're just going to have to get to the Prophet and tell them the truth, and that we don't want Rita to write one more untrue word about my pregnancy, or about the father, whoever 'he' is." She dragged him off the couch, grabbed Ron's hand and pulled both of them out the front door to accomplish their new objective.
