Chapter Ten
"Ginny, I've made arrangements for you to take your NEWT exams at a later date, or accept a grade based on your academic performance so far this year," Lupin said amiably a month later. Things had been strange between them – friendly, affectionate in a friendly way, but neither had made any attempt to take it any further than that. It seemed as though their marriage would be one based on friendship and their child together, but nothing more... and, Ginny had thought wryly more than once, it would certainly be a happier marriage than many. "I'd take the grade," he recommended. "It will be over and done with and you won't be trying to remember stuff that you learnt months ago."
Ginny's face crinkled in confusion. "Why would I take my exams later?" she asked, a little testily, because she sensed that Lupin was up to one of his schemes whereby he thought he was doing the best by Ginny – and perhaps he was – but by doing first, and then informing her about it after it had been done.
"Because your exams fall at eight-and-a-half-months," he said, gesturing slightly at her swollen belly. "And I want you in St. Mungo's at eight months."
"Eight months!" Ginny exclaimed. "Remus, you do know that a pregnancy traditionally lasts nine months?" she asked. Perhaps if the date of conception, and therefor the date of birth, was in doubt, but they had no such concerns. "And first pregnancies tend to last longer, too," she added. Her mum often joked that Bill had been closer to ten months, with the gestational period shortening with the five following pregnancies so Ginny had been closer to eight months.
"Human pregnancies," Lupin corrected her quietly. "Teddy was born at eight-and-a-half."
"Huh. So he really was conceived within marriage," Ginny said. Teddy's slightly early birth – especially in light of the fact that first pregnancies did tend to last a little longer – had caused a fair few lewd jokes among those of them young enough to find such jokes amusing. Now it turned out that Teddy had in fact been born within wedlock and had simply been an early birth.
"Ha-ha," Lupin said shortly. He was well aware of how amusing people found Teddy's early birth – especially in light of the fact that first pregnancies did tend to last a little longer – but for him, it was no laughing matter. They wouldn't have taken Tonks to the Death-Eater controlled St. Mungo's even if they had known Teddy would come early, but Teddy had come early, and there was every chance that his child with Ginny would come early, and he wasn't willing to take the chance. He wanted Ginny in St. Mungo's at eight months, and that was that. "But she had a hard time of it, she might still be alive if she'd had the expertise and resources of St. Mungo's. I don't want to take that chance with you."
Ginny's eyes went wide at that. Tonks could still be alive had she had the treatment that she should have been entitled to – but that she didn't dare seek as the wife of a werewolf? "I thought Bellatrix killed her," she said. Thought? She knew that Bellatrix LeStrange had murdered her niece.
"She did. But she was able to because Dora's reflexes were all off, and they were off because cross-breed births are difficult and it was compounded by the fact she wasn't at St. Mungo's. If she had been, she would have been back to her usual self in a few days and maybe in a condition to hold her own."
"Wow," Ginny said. She had thought that Tonks wasn't her usual bouncy self, but naturally she hadn't realised that the woman had had a difficult recovery from childbirth. "I'm sorry, I had no idea." Funny to think about it, actually – if Tonks had stayed put like Lupin had told her to, then she wouldn't have died, and he never would have gotten involved with Ginny... unconsciously, she pressed her hand to her stomach. Funny how these things worked out. "But I'm not Dora, Remus. If anything happens, I can go to St. Mungo's straight away. And there isn't exactly a whole bunch of battles going on for me to pitch myself into straight away."
He shot her a dirty look. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to throw it in your face. But I want to finish my exams." More to the point, she didn't want to be singled out yet again because of her pregnancy and marriage. Lupin didn't understand, had pointed out when she'd brought it up that a year from now – hell, three months from now – she would no longer be a student and only thought of as his wife and the mother of his child – but it was a difference between her and her fellow students that she felt keenly, and she didn't want to be singled out yet again.
"And I want you in St. Mungo's next week," Lupin countered. He had that look in his eyes, that you-do-what-I-say-because-I-know-best look. And perhaps if he had come to her before he had made other arrangements, she would have gone along with it. But the fact that he had yet again made arrangements according to what he thought was best for her and then told her about it infuriated her. How many times had they gone over this? How many times was he going to treat her like a child instead of a wife?
"And I want to finish my exams," she insisted stubbornly, returning his look with one of her own: I-won't-be-told-what-to-do. "I can make you," he threatened, regretting the words even before they came out of his mouth, but he hadn't been able to stop himself. The closer Ginny got to her due date, the stronger the memories of Tonks's pregnancy – the difficult birth, the long recovery which had ultimately culminated in her death – came to the forefront of his mind. Some days he made himself sick with worry over losing her; some nights he couldn't sleep a wink. He wanted her safely in St. Mungo's at eight months and not a day later. Eight month, as in a week from now. Trying to force an issue with Ginny was never a good idea – he should have learnt that by now. Her eyes flashed angrily at the suggestion.
"You can," she said. "But you know what I'll think of you if you do." She spoke this with such contempt that you'd think he was suggesting gutting kittens for the fun of it rather than being over-cautious and wanting his wife in hospital a month before her due date. His jaw tightened, and he considered forcing the issue and dealing with the consequences later. But for the moment, he let it go.
"Fine," he snapped. "Andy will be pleased if you die, anyway. She never approved of my remarriage." He wasn't sure what possessed him to say such a thing but sometimes she was so goddamn infuriating that he wanted to lash out at her with whatever weapon he had. Besides, maybe it might just scare her into backing down and agreeing to pack her bags and go to St. Mungo's tonight.
Ginny wanted to slap him. For the past month, he had shown no romantic or sexual interest in her whatsoever. It was as if he had decided that they were better off as friends. No, not even that... like she was someone he had been saddled with because of a drunken mistake so he may as well make the best of things. Like, given the circumstances, he might be better off if she were to die in childbirth. For a moment, she considered backing down and agreeing to go. It chilled her more than she cared to admit that Tonks had died because of a complicated cross-breed pregnancy and birth exacerbated by lack of postpartum care. But that would be tantamount to admitting that his words had gotten to her. And besides, it wasn't the same for her as it had been for Tonks – she could go to St. Mungo's at any moment. And she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had scared her. "Thankyou," she said, her voice so sweet that it was obvious she didn't mean it in the slightest.
Lupin watched her go, fuming and frustrated. Part of him wanted to drag her – by the hair if he had to – all the way to St. Mungo's. But she would never forgive him if he did. She had finally come to understand that he had had no control, no say in the Sarah Callahan incident. She would never buy that excuse if he forced her to St. Mungo's –and for good reason, because he had been in perfect control of all his facilities when he had arranged for her to take her exams another time, and would be in perfect control of all her facilities if he forced her into St. Mungo's. Damn it, sometimes he wished she was just a little more pliable, like Tonks was.
But then, if she were pliable like Tonks was, he wouldn't be so crazy about her, he knew. She infuriated him sometimes with her stubbornness and her refusal to see that his age and experience often meant that he knew best. But other times it was that same stubborn, proud, independent streak that forced him to realise a lot of his flaws and interact with her as an equal, a partner – good bad an ugly. The way she had confronted him over Greyback was an example of that. He had loved Tonks, but he knew, deep down, that she would never have confronted him like that. Hell, when he had come back to her after walking out on her and their baby, she had welcomed him with open arms and not once chastised him for it. (Though Andromeda had done plenty enough for both of them. Hell, she had done enough to cover whatever Ted had thought of him, too.)
How could he love her so much and be so infuriated by her for the same reason?
"She won't go to St. Mungo's! She promises to hate me for the rest of her life – of mine, whichever ends first – if I make her go! She won't see reason! I organised for her to take her exams later – even better, not take them at all – and she spits in my face!"
Sprout calmly sipped her tea until Lupin had ranted enough to calm down. She was quite content to wait him out – if nothing else, he was pacing too furiously to comfortably hold Teddy, so she had her pseudo-grandson in her lap. She so rarely got to hold Teddy, Lupin was so overprotective of him. (Though at least she was faring better than Slughorn, who had called Andromeda several nasty things upon learning that his favourite student had fallen for and was going to marry a muggle-born Hufflepuff, which Andromeda had never forgiven him for and now refused to let him touch so much as a hair on Teddy's head.) She was quite happy to let her colleague and friend go on for as long as he liked. "Are you finished?" she asked when Lupin paused for quite a bit.
"Yes," he said, sheepishly realising that he had been ranting a fair bit. He sunk into his chair and took his tea. "She's just so infuriating."
Sprout raised an eyebrow to him. "And you can't be?" she asked. "Remus, did it ever occour to you to ask her first before you went and made arrangement? I'd say she would have taken it much better if she had felt she was part of it from the beginning."
Lupin squirmed. "I did," he admitted. "But I wanted it to be a surprise. I didn't want to get her excited over it and then have it not turn out." Sprout laughed.
"You really have forgotten what it's like to be a student," she said. "You didn't much like being singled out, did you?" she asked.
"Well, no, but – "
"I know being pregnant isn't the same as being a werewolf, but come on, Remus, how do you think she feels, being singled out? Do you know what a sacrifice it was for her to stop wearing the clothes Andromeda made for her? Overnight she went from at least looking like an ordinary teenage girl who could fit into her school uniform to someone who was quite obviously six months pregnant and had to wear regular maternity clothes. No teenager wants to be singled out like that. Did you really think she'd be over-the-moon, given that there would naturally be some jealousy when other students learnt that she didn't have to do her exams, she'd just get a mark based on her other assessments?"
"I didn't think of that," he admitted.
"I gathered that. No offense, Remus, but sometimes you really suck at understanding the mentality of a seventeen-year-old. Even a seventeen-year-old like Ginny." Maybe especially with a seventeen-year-old like Ginny. The girl had a certain worldliness and maturity for her age, no doubt the result of having five older brothers – one of whom was eleven years older than her. It was no doubt what had attracted her to him in the first place. But that didn't change the fact – in fact, it just made it easier to forget, and cause trouble down the track – that she was still a seventeen-year-old with the baggage that came along with being a seventeen-year-old. "Remus, take heart. This isn't the same situation with Nymphodora. Ginny will have access to the best treatment that magic can buy at a moment's notice."
"I'm scared," he admitted.
"I know you are. But nothing's going to happen to her. Nothing would have happened to Nymphodora, if she hadn't disobeyed you. Ginny will be at St. Mungo's at a moments notice with nothing more dangerous than bad hospital good to contend with – two luxuries that Nymphodora didn't have. And then all you'll have to worry about is Molly trying to butt in ever other day and Andromeda raising hell because she thinks Molly's including Teddy too much into the Weasley family."
Lupin smiled wryly at that. "You make that sound scarier than anything Ginny will go through."
Ginny gripped the edge of her desk intensely, her knuckles going white with effort as another bolt of pain flashed through her. Logically she knew that it was coming from her abdomen, but it was so excruciating that it felt like it was coming from a dozen different places in her body. It felt like she was being fried by a bunch of lightning bolts coming from all different directions. An hour, she pleaded with her body – and her baby. Just one measly hour and her Potions exam – her last one – would be over and she could go to St. Mungo's and have the best care that magic could afford. Right now, she didn't much care if Lupin said I told you so.
Well... she did care. Sort of. Enough to get through her Potions exam, enough to finish her exams so she could say I told you so. She didn't want to admit defeat halfway through her final exam. She wouldn't admit defeat halfway through her final exam.
"Ginny?" Luna asked, concern clearly written on her face as she watched her friend grip the edge of the disk and attempt – not very successfully – to suppress a grunt of pain.
"I'm fine," Ginny managed to get out.
"Professor!" Luna yelled, managing to make Ginny jump despite her pain because Luna never yelled, always spoke in this deceptively dreamy voice, as if she wasn't all there. It was probably why she managed to be so insightful, because people didn't take her that seriously so she managed to pick up things that people did when they were taken far less seriously than they should be. "Professor!" she yelled again. Slughorn, typical of Slughorn, was paying the most attention to the work of his favourite students.
"Shut up," Ginny hissed. Luna ignored her. She jumped up and down, waving her arms around in a way that couldn't not attract Slughorn's attention. A little annoyed – because he had never really understood Luna and therefor hadn't paid her more than the most basic of attention – he wove his way over to her. "Professor, something's wrong with Ginny," she said breathlessly.
Immediately, Slughorn was alarmed. He had wholeheartedly agreed with Lupin that Ginny should be in St. Mungo's – if for no other reason than he felt uncomfortable having an eight-and-a-half-months pregnant young woman in his classroom. And God forbid that something should happen to her under his watch. While he had always had a decent teacher-student and then colleague relationship with Lupin, he had said some things to Andromeda in the heat of the moment almost thirty years ago that he had long since regretted. And while Lupin and Andromeda might have an uneasy alliance, it was nonetheless an alliance bound by something pretty damn strong, which meant that Lupin had never quite been a hundred percent trusting of Slughorn. Which would no doubt be exacerbated if anything happened to Ginny – and her baby – on Slughorn's watch. Which it looked like it was going to.
The next contraction was too much for Ginny to suppress, and she released a loud cry. She gripped the desk ever harder, but the pain was too much for her. She released her grip on the desk and dropped to the floor. Without being told, Luna bolted out of the room and sprinted to the Lupins quarters. "Professor!" she yelled, even more loudly and frantically than she had to get Professor Slughorn's attention. "PROFESSORI!" For a moment she was worried that Lupin was somewhere else in the castle, but then the door opened.
"Luna," he said, needless to say, surprised, because firstly, he thought the seventh-year Potions exam was going on right now (OK, he knew because he had every intention of whisking Ginny away the second it was over) and secondly, because he had never heard Luna speak like that, hadn't even thought her capable of it. "Shouldn't you be in your exam? You'll lose marks."
"I don't care," she panted, and Lupin realised that she must have raced to these quarters to be in such a state just from coming from the Potions rooms. "It's Ginny. I think she's in labour."
It was exactly what Lupin had been worried about. Every fibre of his being screamed to bolt to the Potions classroom with a speed that would have made Ginny look like a turtle in comparison. He forced himself to calm down; getting angry and frantic would only make things worse. "OK, Luna, I need you to do something very important. I need you to take Teddy up to the Gryffindor tower – the password's Dumbledore. Professor Sprout should be there. If she's not, try the greenhouses. If you can't find her, go to Professor Flitwick or McGonagall, but for the love of God, do not give him to Professor Slughorn. Do you understand me?" he asked. Luna nodded, floored, flattered and a little nervous at being given such a task. Everyone knew how overprotective Lupin was of his son.
Lupin retrieved Teddy from his crib and placed him in his carry basket and gave him to Luna. Then he dashed off to the Potions classroom. Slughorn was both relieved and petrified to see Lupin. Relieved, because now it was his problem, and petrified in case Lupin decided to hold him personally responsible for Ginny going into labour in his classroom. "I had no idea – " he started in his stammering way that he did when he was nervous. Slughorn, while a decent man who cared about his students and colleagues, was fundamentally a coward and didn't care much to be offside a werewolf when it came to his wife and unborn child.
"It's fine," he grunted. "Ginny, I'm here," he said. Crouching, he slid one arm under her knees and wrapped the other around her back, lifting her effortlessly. "I need your office," he said to Slughorn. "Specifically, your fireplace."
"Of course, of course," Slughorn said nervously. He seemed to suddenly realise that his class had ground to a halt, potions abandoned. "Class dismissed," he said. "You can all have grades based on your performance during the year... or resit the exam, whichever you prefer," he tacked on. The class cheered at that – although they would have preferred being told they didn't have to sit the exam before it was halfway finished.
"Now, if only you'd offered that to begin with, we wouldn't be in this situation," Lupin couldn't resist having a jab at Slughorn. Slughorn, wisely, didn't say anything. "I'm going to take her to St. Mungo's," he said needlessly. "I've given Teddy to Luna and sent her to find Pomona – don't even try intercepting him, Luna knows that whatever Andy does to me if you get hold of Teddy, I'll do to Luna in turn. Whatever your beef with Andy is, take it up with her." It felt good to be saying these things to Slughorn, if only because it kept his mind off his wife, who was in obvious pain. "If anyone wants to find us, we'll be there."
"Of course, of course."
"Remus, I'm sorry," Ginny groaned in his arms. What she wouldn't give right now for the relief that had to come from the resources and expertise available at St. Mungo's. Not to mention not having made a fool of herself in front of her co-students. He had been right, and she wished she had listened to him just that one time.
"It's OK. I'm taking you to St. Mungo's right now. It will be OK, I promise," he said, although right now, he wasn't sure. He was too filled with fear, too fuelled by bad memories to be sure that everything was going to be OK.
"Remus, go away. Go pace the corridor, go and get drunk, I don't care. Just go away. You're doing more harm than good."
"I can't leave her," Lupin insisted.
"Well, you can't stay here," Andromeda insisted, rising to her full height which, while still shorter than Lupin's, seemed a lot more than it was because of her indomitable personality. Not to mention that St. Mungo's was her turf. "You're actually worse than you were with Dora... and you had more to worry about then. Now go. I don't care where, just go before I call security and have you thrown out. Remus," she said, her features softening just a little. "I know you're worried. And we both know she should have been here weeks ago. But she is not Dora. She has the best facilities she can get and no war to go and get herself killed in. She will be fine. But I can't do my job with you making yourself sick with worry and barking pointless orders like you're the head of this hospital."
So Lupin left. "Thankgod," Andromeda said to Molly. "I thought he was going to make a nuisance of himself the entire birth. Though I've been itching to hex him for two years, I was kind of hoping he would give me the opportunity."
"How is she? Will she be OK?" Molly asked.
"I'm not going to lie to you," Andromeda said. Molly, for all that she was obviously deeply worried, could still be addressed reasonably, unlike their mutual son-in-law. "From what little we know if cross-breed pregnancies, they are difficult – much more so than full-human ones."
"I thought Teddy was human. I thought he couldn't have children that weren't human," Molly said, slightly hysterical.
"He can't," Andromeda said, deciding now wasn't the time to point out that that was just a theory – a well-backed theory, but theory nonetheless. "But it's still a cross-breed pregnancy. It will take a lot out of her, and unfortunately, painkilling potions and spells don't seem to do anything. But she's a strong girl, stronger than my Dora – in body and mind – and my Dora would have survived without St. Mungo's care if she'd just listened to us and stayed put. Ginny has the best care available. She will get through this. It might take longer than a regular birth and it might be harder for her, but she will get through this."
Molly nodded, taking comfort from Andromeda's words. At least someone was listening to her, Andromeda thought. You'd think she didn't know what she was doing.
Ginny screamed again. Lupin had warned her that the birth would be difficult, but she had no idea how difficult – no had she taken him seriously when he'd warned her that no potion of spell had touched Tonks's pain so they likely wouldn't touch hers. It felt like she was being torn apart. Over and over, for hours on end. The pain was excruciating. She remembered the things she had learnt in Muggle Studies, about the Christian concept of Hell. She was in hell now. She was being punished for being such a bad wife. She was being punished because she had refused him on their wedding night, had embarrassed him in front of his students over a non-existent affair, had been convinced that he had slept with another woman of his own free will when he had in fact been raped – something her brother had had to explain to her – had refused to go to hospital when he had asked her to. She was being punished because she hadn't understood him, hadn't tried to understand him, had thrown in his face all his attempts to do the right thing by her. She was being punished for being a bad wife. She was going to die and go to Hell for it. She remembered what Lupin had said. Andy will be pleased if you die, anyway. She never approved of my remarriage. Now she was going to die and Andromeda would be happy...
... "What is she talking about?" Andromeda asked Molly when Ginny blurted out something about her being happy if she died between agonised cries of pain. Once or twice she had fantasised about Lupin dying in some way that was in no way her fault so she would have Teddy, but she would never wish something like that on Ginny, no matter how much she had disapproved of the marriage. (And her disapproval had always been on Lupin, anyway.)
"Did you say anything to her?" Molly asked suspiciously.
"Like what? I hope you die? Oh, and could you take your husband with you, so I can have my grandson all to myself?" Andromeda asked sarcastically. And besides, the way you take in any waif that's remotely connected to your family, I'd have to off every single Weasley to have him all to myself, she added.
"Oh, don't tell me you've never thought it," Molly scoffed. Though why a hoity-toity Black cares so much about her half-blood, quarter-breed grandson, I don't know.
The tension between the two grandmothers had begun.
Meanwhile, Ginny felt the pain rage through her and her guilt increased over the way she had treated her husband. He had needed her so much and she had rejected him at some points and at others thought only of her own pain. She thought about accommodating, loving Tonks and how much better a wife she had been for him. She realised that she had never told him that she understood – that she forgave him – even though there was nothing to forgive. She had never told him that what had happened with Sarah Callahan had not been his fault and that she, Ginny, had been a child thinking only of herself to not realise that. She hadn't told him that she finally understood. And she hadn't told him that she loved him. She was going to die without him knowing that she understood, and that she loved him. "Tell Remus I understand... and I love him," Ginny said.
"Tell him yourself," Andromeda said brusquely.
"Tell him I love him," Ginny repeated feebly. "I love him... I love..."