A/N: Teehee.
Disclaimer: It's not mine. I'm not the one with the castle in Scotland.
Fast-Forward
Chapter Twelve: Poker Face
Ginny stared down at the newspaper. Tom knew that she was aware of Scott's disappearance. Tom knew that she didn't care about hearing in general, about him being missing. Tom knew that she didn't like people hiding things from her. Therefore, the question was – why was he still going to such extreme lengths to cover up the facts?
"Yes, I did," Tom growled. "However, it's due to the fact that my problem is hereditary that I generally tried not to think about it. Don't be sorry," he said resentfully, taking the ice-pack from his head and turning it over in his hands, restless and uneasy. "It's not your fault." He gave a short, bitter laugh with no humour. "It isn't as though you got yourself pregnant, is it?"
Ginny's shoulders slumped, and, almost like a misbehaving child who has been banished from the society of her friends, she left the room, abandoning Tom to be haunted by his own nightmare.
xxx
December came, and brought with it some ease. Ginny and Tom never mentioned the now almost-certain baby to each other, and they definitely didn't tell anyone else about it. At first, it was difficult even to look at each other – how did you pretend that you had no idea what someone was thinking when you knew exactly what was running through their head? – but time went on, and it became easier.
There a few mornings of sickness, where after a moment of staying frozen on the bathroom, waiting to be certain that it was all over, Ginny would emerge to see Tom sitting on the edge of the bed, his back turned on her, staring blankly forwards. However, as the days flew by, the dawn queasiness became more infrequent, and they could almost be themselves.
A letter came from Philippa one afternoon when both Ginny and Tom were back from work.
"Hey, look at this," Ginny called loudly across the apartment to where Tom was sitting at his desk and working on some of his new tasks as admissions assistant for Flourish and Blott's. As she walked towards him, she read out, "'Ginny and Tom – do you want to go out with me and Alden tonight? We're going to have dinner in London and see what entertainment we can find. Maybe watch a film, or whatever. Write back as soon as possible with your answer! Love, Pippa'." She stopped behind Tom's chair, ducking lower to wind her arms loosely around his neck, resting her chin on one shoulder. "What d'you think, then?"
Tom shrugged slightly, the movement bobbing Ginny's head up and down. "I don't know," he said, surveying the pages and pages of tables and charts on his desk. Ginny had noticed that his voice now seemed to be permanently emotionless – now was no different. "I have a lot of work to do. Ask what time we would meet them."
"Okay. Will do."
Ginny knew that he wasn't particularly interested in going, but she was tired of going to places by herself and coming up with an excuse as to why he wasn't there.
She tilted her face sideways towards his, observing the side of his face, but couldn't learn much from his guarded expression. Her eyes fell upon the still-raised bump near his temple where he'd hit his head on the sink, and her heart sank slightly… remembering. She leaned forwards to kiss the bruise, and then let go, pushing off his chair to help her stand up. She watched silently from behind him as he picked up his quill again and began to neatly form notes from several charts, and then turned, walking away.
Philippa's reply to their enquiry as to the time arrived about two hours later: seven-thirty, eight-ish – we'll meet at the Leaky Cauldron. A reluctant Tom agreed that this would be enough time for him to finish his work, and so seven-thirty saw Ginny fiddling with the material of her green dress, which she had only worn – and, indeed, only been given - a month ago, and she was absolutely certain that it hadn't been this tight then.
"Are you alright?" Tom asked, glancing at her as he looked for his shoes.
Ginny hesitated, biting her lip. "Yeah," she said after a moment. She didn't want to tell him that her dress was getting smaller, because they both knew what that meant – that she was getting bigger. And that would not put him in a good mood.
He looked as though he didn't believe her (Ginny wouldn't have believed herself; her '…yeah' was so late), but didn't question her.
The two met Alden and Philippa, as promised, at the Leaky Cauldron, and they began to progress down Diagon Alley in search of somewhere to eat.
"Oh, how about there?" Philippa pointed across the street to a small pub called… the Leaky Cauldron.
Ginny frowned, not sure how that was even possible; she glanced at Tom. The expression that she received from him was one of polite disinterest – a slight smile set across a cool, aloof face.
"Pippa," Alden groaned. "We've been following you for fifteen minutes, and you've taken us in a massive circle!"
"Oh." Philippa tilted her head, as though that made her more perceptible to her own idiocy. "Whoops."
Nevertheless, they chose simply to dine in the Leaky Cauldron – not the most expensive night out, nor the most classy, Ginny thought to herself, but that only reminded herself of her birthday dinner, and what had happened afterwards.
And look where that got me.
"How are you, then?" asked Alden of Tom, and Ginny was glad that her friend was making some effort to distract him – evidently he had spotted that something was wrong. "I haven't heard from you in a long time."
"So… Ginny," Philippa leaned across the table, smirking. "Moved in together? Cosy, eh?" She winked. "Eh?"
Feeling extremely uncomfortable, Ginny decided not to answer this, and her decision was reinforced when she realised that Tom was now (subtly) paying very close attention to the girls' conversation.
"How's the bar going?" she asked instead, switching the conversation onto safer topics.
"Boring." Philippa swirled around the Firewhiskey that she'd ordered in its glass before drinking some. "I want to get a new job. I don't like it at the bar. Loads of drunk old men trying to look down my top. Hooray. Fun."
"I could ask if I could get you something in the Prophet," Ginny suggested.
"Thanks, Gin-"
Though the redhead absolutely hated the nickname for bringing up almost-forgotten memories of a large red-headed family – a boy with glasses – a girl with bushy hair – and a school burning to cinders – she was pleased with herself for barely flinching.
"-but no thanks." Philippa grimaced. "I'm not really into journalism." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I think I might apply for a job at Hogwarts actually." She grinned. "I could have all the spotty little adolescent boys swooning for me."
Ginny's eyes widened. "Pip, that's illegal."
Philippa shrugged. The food arrived, and they moved on to discuss how things were going at the Daily Prophet, and what they'd heard from their friends from school.
"-and did you hear about Eleanor Fionn? She's into forensic science, which I don't think anyone expected-"
"I know, I heard – it's so weird-"
"-and then Jack Swithin is training in Auror school, which I think suits him really well… and Ramira is an assistant at a magic pre-school – I've been there, it's so cute. At break-times, they all play with the toy Portkeys and things, giggling as they zap from one side to the other of the playground… it's absolutely so adorable that it makes me just want to hug all of them and take them home!"
Ginny cringed, remembering what an obsession Philippa had for sweet and fluffy things. It was a good thing that she wasn't going to tell anyone about the whole pregnancy thing – if Philippa found out, she'd probably explode with the cuteness of it all.
Dinner finished, and the four were preparing to leave to try and find something to do for the remaining time they had when Alden noticed, "Hey – the sign says it's poker night."
The others followed his gaze and saw a large poster declaring:
POKER NIGHT
Sunday, December 2ND
"That," said Ginny bluntly, "is one of the most extravagantly detailed posters I have ever seen."
"Well, should we go for it?" Philippa asked. "I don't know about you, but I feel like making some money."
"Pippa, you won't," Alden reminded her. "You can not lie." He glanced around at Ginny and Tom. "Do you want to?"
"Yeah, okay," Ginny grinned, and skipped after the two others, looking over her shoulder to make sure that Tom was coming – he followed in an indifferent silence.
xxx
"Okay, re-deal," called the manager of the Poker Night, standing at the foot of the table. Everyone swept their cards towards a dark sophisticated-looking woman, whose turn it was to deal, and she sat for quite some time, happily shuffling, before serving everyone their hand.
Ginny observed hers, and fought to keep her smirk hidden. The whole point of this was to have a good poker face… but it was proving difficult not to smile when she had a pair. Five of clubs, five of spades, and some other random cards that she didn't really care about…
She glanced around at the others. Philippa, as suspected, was doing terribly; Alden was decent, not amazing, but okay, like herself; and Tom…
She scowled.
Tom was annoying her. He'd been detached and uncommunicative all evening, and now, to top it all off, he was owning everyone at poker. She supposed that it was to be expected, since he had practically worn a poker face for seventeen years of his life, but it was still annoying her.
"Place bets."
The bets went around the table anti-clockwise. Some people folded (included Philippa, who had taken to pulling out early in the game to save herself the embarrassment of her failing poker-face) but the rest all placed or matched bets.
Alden, seated on Ginny's right, raised the bet.
Ginny glanced at her hand again, and kept her facial expression totally blank. "Ten tokens," she said apathetically, pushing some of her plastic coins into the centre of the table. The idea of the competition was that every time someone won the pot, their name was written down, and whoever had won the most times by the end of the night won five thousand Galleons.
The bets continued around – to Tom, sitting opposite her, one of the last people – "thirty tokens," he said calmly – she swore under her breath, hating him at that moment – and then everyone else matched it, and the display of hands began.
Yes… yes… Ginny wanted to bounce in her seat with the excitement as everyone revealed their cards… so far hers was the best…
"One pair," she said coolly, turning her hand over. Someone to her left muttered a profanity.
I AM ON FIRREEE, she thought happily as the other people in the game revealed their hands. Thirty tokens, here I co-
"Three of a kind." Tom set down his cards, exposing nine of hearts, nine of diamonds, nine of clubs…
Ginny's mouth fell open.
You piece of… a growl rose in the back of her throat. That was mine, you sneaky bastard!
Her eyes narrowed. Screw it. She no longer cared about winning. All that she wanted was for Tom to lose. She'd been slowly getting more and more irritated with him all night, and now she was going to get back at him.
The cards were re-dealt. Ginny checked her hand. Nothing special. Oh well. She didn't care anymore. The bets began, moving slowly around the table. Few folded. Excellent.
Alden placed his bet – Ginny slipped off one of her shoes. She placed her own bet – the bets kept going. She was sitting directly opposite Tom, so hopefully it wouldn't be some other random person who she would get her revenge on…
Tom's turn.
"Twenty-fi-aaaa." He suddenly jerked in his chair – for no apparent reason – thus knocking over his neat pile of tokens, and there was a loud thump of his knee hitting the bottom of the table. He cleared his throat, using this 'cough' to cover the glare he fired at Ginny.
The redhead could barely keep herself from breaking out in manic giggles.
As soon as he tried to start speaking again, Ginny started sliding her bare toes up his leg again. Now that he knew exactly what she was trying to do, Tom didn't jump again as he had the first time (now that had been funny) but he began to colour quite prominently, and his poker face was really spectacularly failing.
"Twenty-five tokens," he said, his voice shaking slightly, clearly flustered, despite his efforts at maintaining his emotionless façade.
And of course, no-one believed him.
The next betting round went through everyone. Ginny folded immediately, having far too much fun distracting Tom to bother with playing poker anymore.
Alden gave her a glance and mouthed disapprovingly, 'what are you doing?' but she ignored him. It was coming up to Tom's turn again, and it was apparent from his set jaw and stubborn eyes that he was determined not to be caught out again by her frivolities.
Oh, but he would.
Tom now was required to place his bet, and he looked quickly once more at his cards before giving everyone present a gaze of cold nonchalance – though the look he gave Ginny was slightly more irritated than anyone else's. "Fort-"
She let some of her hair fall over her shoulder, giving him a smouldering look from underneath lowered lashes, pushing her toes further and further up his leg.
His voice shook and gave out halfway through the word 'forty', and he stared down at the table for a second, trying to compose himself. His face was now quite obviously colouring, his ears looking very hot, and he was breathing slightly harder than he had been a moment before.
"Forty…" he tried again. "Forty…"
And then he made the mistake of looking up into Ginny's face.
Instantly, he was put under the intense pressure of having a scorching come-hither stare burning into him, her pouting slightly, her head slightly tilted as though to say, come and get me, then… and she pushed her foot higher, even though it now meant that she had to slump down in her chair to reach far enough for her toes to tantalisingly dance across his thigh.
His breath snagged and his hand twitched violently as she started moving her big toe in circles through his trousers, and it looked as though he was having problems starting breathing again.
She licked her lips.
"Fold," he muttered angrily, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms.
Ginny actually had to hold a hand over her mouth to stop herself from bursting out laughing.
Alden leaned over to whisper to her. "Can I ask," he said, his voice slightly criticising, "why Tom seems to be having a lot of trouble concentrating?"
"I'm not really sure," she replied innocently, looking thoughtful. "I suppose that it could be because I'm turning him on under the table…"
At this response, Alden's eyebrows lifted almost to his hairline. "You know what," he said quietly, shaking his head, "I don't want to know."
A small laugh burst out Ginny involuntarily, and it could have been due to the sudden sharp exhalation accompanied by the laughter that caused a surprising stab of pain through her stomach. She gasped slightly, but bit her lip to keep quiet. She then watched the game proceed, waiting for it to get around to Tom's turn before she could start messing around with his head again.
The strange thing was, though, that it seemed to be taking a very long time… as though everyone was moving in slow-motion… and everything was suddenly very, very loud… and as the noise level grew louder and louder, her heartbeat grew louder and louder… and a pain began to build up in her abdomen… and breathing was becoming painful…
She noticed that, very slowly, people were turning to stare at her… still in slow-motion… Tom, his eyes wide, staring, apprehensive… voices, booming everywhere… echoing.
"GINEVRA ARE YOU ALRIGHT-"
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH HER-"
"I DON'T THINK SHE CAN SEE US SHE JUST KEEPS STARING-"
Echoing.
So loud… so loud… breathing hard… pain inside her… pain… PAIN-
"Tom," she gasped, grabbing her stomach, and she saw the look of alarm flare through his dark eyes when he finally understood what was wrong-
And then reality caught up to speed, much too fast, much too loud, voices screaming shouting LOUD-
And she blacked out.
xxx
With her head stinging, Ginny opened her eyes to find herself in St. Mungoes'.
She was lying on what seemed to be a dentists' chair, except tipped all the way back to make a sort of improvised bed. Sitting on either side of her was a very confused-looking Alden and Tom, whose face seemed totally blank and emotionless, though she could see the distress it was hiding.
"Are you alright?" Alden asked, worried despite the look of puzzlement as to what was going on.
"Yeah," Ginny said, sitting up slowly, with both of the males on either side of her offering a hand to help pull her up. "Where's Pippa?"
"She had to go," Alden explained. "The landlord of her apartment building shuts it all up at midnight, and she didn't want to get locked out. She wanted to be here, though."
Ginny opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, a Healer nurse came in, smiling.
"You're awake now, are you? Great." The nurse didn't wait for any sort of reply. "Well, it's all good news for you – you just had a nervous attack, nothing serious. We don't know, obviously, because we weren't there when it happened," she chuckled at her own little joke, which really wasn't funny at all, "but it was probably just your system trying to adjust to the baby-"
Panic flooded Ginny, and she froze for a second, before looking over at Alden to see how he was reacting. He was just blinking at the nurse, his mouth slightly open.
The nurse faltered. "Oh." She turned to the occupant of her makeshift bed. "You do know, don't you, that you're pregnant?" she asked tentatively.
"Er." Ginny sighed. "Yeah."
"Good," said the nurse, relieved. "Otherwise I would have had a lot of paperwork to deal with… you know, in case you went into shock or something. I don't know." She adjusted her skirt. "Anyway. The pains you had was probably just your system trying to adjust to the baby, like I said, and I think that you should be okay after a few days, and there shouldn't be any more incidents. Can I ask, though, if you would like to schedule an appointment for a check-up?"
Ginny glanced at Tom, but he wasn't even looking at her any more. He looked down at his hands, hanging listlessly between his knees, and was for all appearances not paying attention – an appearance that she knew was wrong.
She looked back up at the nurse. "…Okay." She bit her lip. "When would the check-up be?"
"Well, that would have to be scheduled. Your name is Ginevra Peregrine, am I right?"
"Yeah."
"Very well, then; we'll send you an owl with the time and date of your appointment." The nurse shuffled some papers and took a glimpse of her pocket-watch, before giving them a big banal smile. "If you have else that you need to report, then you'll have to check out at reception, thank you!"
And as quickly as that, they were shooed out of the ward.
As they made there way down the stairs from the ward, with Tom holding one of Ginny's arms to support her, as she was still weak and dizzy from fainting, Alden cleared his throat noisily.
"So," he said, looking across at them, "do you want to start from the beginning and try it from there?"
"I'm pregnant," said Ginny tiredly, not strong enough – or even awake enough – to go into long conversations. "End of story. I doubt you want to hear anything any more detailed than that."
"You're right, I don't," Alden said wryly.
"By the way, just in case you weren't certain in any aspect of the subject, not a word of this leaves your lips to anyone," Tom said, speaking for the first time since Ginny had woken up. He stared straight ahead as he spoke; not looking at Alden, and especially not looking at Ginny.
"Of course not," said the younger of the two men, sounding slightly offended that he could be thought that untrustworthy, but he covered the insult to his pride well. "I won't tell anyone… in which case, it's probably better that Pippa went home early," he chuckled.
Ginny didn't answer. She was sleepy, as it was past midnight, and she was already drained by the small attack on her system. Also, her thoughts were elsewhere, on another of the many memories that she had almost forgotten.
Another sigh. "You know Salazar Slytherin, I'm presuming?" he didn't look to her for confirmation, "He… he had children. And… a hereditary set of cursed genes was passed down through the ages. Two children. Any Slytherin descendant would have two children – most commonly, twins. And something that became increasingly common was the attitudes of the children." He swallowed. "Exact opposites – one sarcastic, one friendly. One sweet, one sour. One good, one… not so much."
If the baby was, as Tom feared, problematic, so to speak, then it would easy to tell at the check-up. Quite simply, it wouldn't be a baby – it would be babies. Twins.
She looked at Tom to see if he had the same worried expression on his face as she had on hers – to see if he, too, had come to the same conclusion about the check-up. It was a useless effort, though. Nothing could be seen past his poker face.
xxx
A/N: Dun-dun-DUN. Okay, more answers to random reviewers. I got a lot of questions, and I know that Ginny's pregnancy is kind of messed up, but whatever. A lot of people have been asking these questions, so I'm going to answer each one in turn…
Is Ginny pregnant? No duh, Sherlock.
Is it going to be twins? No comment.
Is the good one going to be Molly? Firstly, Molly Weasley's maiden name is Prewett, not Riddle, and secondly, it's sort of weird. So, good idea, but no.
Is the bad one going to be Voldemort? … I'm sorry if this insults you, but that's kind of a stupid question. :P
I'm pretty sure I got more questions than that, but those were the ones that needed to be dealt with… and those were the only ones I could remember. :D Oh well. TOMORROW I'M GOING ON ARMY CAMP! YAYY! I can't wait. I get to ambush the Year Nines in the middle of the night… Mwahaha. Anyway. Please review, I love you!
NEXT TIME:
"Thanks," said Ginny, giving him a small smile, knowing that he was even edgier about her safety than he had ever been, even though he didn't talk to her much – or even meet her eyes, for that matter. However, at this particular moment, he was meeting her eyes; staring down into her face, his expression totally blank, only his steady gaze reflecting a deep concern. She reassured him quietly, "I'm fine," whilst keeping her voice low so that no-one else would overhear, and he let his hands fall away from her.
xxx