Author's Note:

Wow. Thanks for that kind of response. Hope you like this installment and as always reviews are appreciated!

Here is my disclaimer that I do not own anything Harry Potter related and what follows is merely for entertainment purposes. No money is being made. All credit goes to JK for the wonderful world of Harry Potter that she gifted us with.

"Harry, you're pregnant."

Harry's face snapped up at her. Shock was colored into all of his features.

His mouth opened and then closed, and then it opened again.

"What… but, Hermione – I'm not… I mean, I haven't… how is this possible?" Harry's voice had gotten progressively higher amid his ramblings of a statement. Or a question.

In this situation it was sort of hard to tell.

"I, I'm not sure how it happened, Harry… but it is possible for men to become, you know, after doing…" her voice trailed off as her eyes looked down to Harry's stomach.

Suddenly her face paled at what she was implying, but it hadn't become nearly as white as Harry's face was now.

Who by the way then seemed to sidestep that implication altogether, settling right upon the crux of the problem.

"Pregnant."

Harry said very matter-of-factly, hardly any emotion could be heard in his voice on account of the shock.

For her part Hermione couldn't blame him for the stupefied expression frozen on his face; though, she did take his inability to say anything else as an opportunity to work through her own perception of the bombshell announcement and what it meant for them.

The brightest witch of her age looked upon Harry's stunned countenance with her own wonder, speckled in with a mild dash of annoyance.

Normally, while she loved being presented with a complex problem to solve, this specific little quagmire had come at the absolute worst time.

How were they supposed to look for and rid the world of those dastardly Horcruxes with Harry in this condition?

Despite her feelings of abandonment and betrayal over Ron's departure the previous night, she at least had enough of her mental faculties to realize the small blessing that his absence now provided. Without a doubt she knew that he would not have taken this little development well at all.

Quite possibly, he would only have made things worse.

Those thoughts actually had a stabilizing effect on her approach to the situation at hand.

"This is just like any other problem," she whispered faintly to herself, calling upon the direct and no-nonsense way of handling adversity that her previous years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had instilled into her psyche.

"First, gather all of the evidence that you can and then see if you can make that into a working hypothesis."

There, her mind already felt clearer.

"Harry," said the young woman, "are you sure that you can think of nothing that might explain your current situation?"

Then, as she saw Harry tense and his eyes begin to fill with what looked like obvious panic, she quickly interjected."

"I'm not judging, Harry… I would never do that… about anything that may or may not have happened. I'm just trying to understand as much as I can."

Her voice was much softer now, almost motherly as she tried to coax her friend into telling her something that she had been idly wondering about for a while now.

"Honestly, Hermione," his higher than normal voice was quick to respond, "I'm positive that I haven't done anything that would remotely qualify as allowing myself to end up like this."

He glanced downwards towards his stomach again and pointed, but as soon as he did so his faced relaxed somewhat. The alarm and uncertainty had yet to wear off but another emotion slowly began to creep into his cheeks. Slowly, his hands reached out and downwards to tentatively probe his abdomen.

Suddenly, a most curious expression flitted across his features, one that had both a hint of longing and the barest traces of contentment sprinkled throughout.

However, Hermione also thought that she detected the smallest undertones that told her that her friend had just found something that had already completed and irrevocably captured his heart.

Of course, the sentimental and heartfelt display didn't distract the other part of her well-organized mind that noticed that while Harry had been adamant about not having sex, he hadn't exactly denied that his sexual orientation precluded him from ending up in said situation.

Still, the question of Harry's sexuality aside, if Harry's admission of not having had sex was taken at face value, then she was even more at a loss to explain how Harry had ended up with child.

Therefore, it was a resigned but still determined Hermione Granger that again picked up the medical textbook that she had brought and over the next thirty minutes committed anything and everything that had to do with pregnancy – magical or otherwise – to memory.

The section hadn't been that long, a few pages at most, but when she was finished she had a couple of diagnostic spells that she felt would be appropriate to test out.

Facing this situation like she would any homework assignment that called for a practical application of the theory, Hermione picked up her wand again and looked at Harry.

Only, as she flicked her eyes toward him a smile broke out onto her face. For there Harry was, cradling his stomach with both hands with a look on his face that indicated that he was already committed to loving this child unconditionally.

That was just the sort of person that Harry was and would always be and there wasn't one iota of doubt in her mind that Harry would want anything other than to keep it.

"Harry," her warm voice got his attention and caused him to look up into her eyes.

His cheeks reddened when he realized what his intelligent friend had no doubt already concluded.

"I don't know much about this sort of thing – and I'm sure that we will have to acquire more appropriate books later, possibly even see a medical professional – but there are a few spells in here that I would like to try."

The seventeen-year-old boy, his messy black hair in even more disarray than usual, took a deep breath.

"What kind of spells, Hermione?"

"Well, there are a few that will be immediately useful, and hopefully be able to help us understand how this all came about."

Harry nodded and she continued.

"For instance, I want to determine the general health of the baby and how far along it is. Of course, there is also the matter of …"

Her voice trailed off; she was suddenly unsure as to how to bring this up. But Harry just looked at her expectantly and she just threw it out there.

"There is the matter of finding out who the other parent is."

"Oh!" Harry's eyebrows shot up in understanding.

"There is a spell that can determine … maternity, paternity?"

Harry didn't know how to ask whether him being pregnant meant that there were two fathers or if in addition to him there was an unknown mother out there.

Whatever uncertainty or apprehension that Hermione had she did an admirable job of keeping most of her emotion off her face.

"I honestly don't know about the gender of the other parent but I was thinking that determining who that other person was could give us an idea as to how this happened."

Harry nodded along.

"And even if we still didn't know the exact cause at least we would have a better place to start."

This was all happening so fast but Harry thought that he was doing his best to adjust to the situation and remain calm. For the most part.

Of course, he couldn't resist the idle thought as to just how many people in the world first found out they were pregnant before having to wonder who the other parent was. And considering that he was still a virgin – not counting the possibility of being Obliviated – he was sure that it was a very small number indeed.

Shaking that thought from his mind, it was now Harry's turn to approach the situation head on like any true Gryffindor would and just get on with it. Though, his first priority was making sure the baby, his baby, was first and foremost healthy.

"I want to know that the baby is okay, first. That seems like the most important thing."

Hermione steadied her wand and nodded, before doing another small wave over Harry's stomach.

"Fetus salutem!" She couldn't keep all of the emotion out of her voice.

What if the baby was sick or ill?

A few seconds later though and she relaxed.

"It's healthy, Harry."

There was a smile on her face and Harry exhaled a breath he hadn't known that he had been holding.

"Oh, thank Merlin!"

"Okay, next let's see how far along you are."

This time she traced her wand in a semicircle pattern before flicking downwards as directed in the text.

"Fetus tempus!"

The results of the spell took Hermione a few seconds to work out in her head.

"It looks like you are nearly three months along, which would mean that you got pregnant sometime around your birthday."

Hermione looked at Harry with a piercing and expectant gaze.

"Sorry, Hermione. It still doesn't ring a bell… not unless someone erased my memory."

Hermione made a face characterized by a wrinkling of her nose.

"We can explore that possibility later, though I'm almost positive that nothing happened after you got to the Weasley's. However, given the protection around Privet Drive, it's unlikely that anything happened there either."

Harry shrugged – doing his best to ignore that line of thinking by moving right along, even if he had brought it up.

"Well, what's next? Should we do the sex or find out who this mysterious, other parent is?"

After finding out that the baby was momentarily okay, Harry was leaning towards finding out who he was going to be having a baby with.

It didn't matter to him in the least whether or not his baby was a boy or a girl; he wouldn't love either sex any less or more than the other.

"Let's see whose baby I'm having, then," Harry decided with determination in his eyes.

Again the witch swished her wand and this time drew a figure eight over Harry's gut two times before flicking it upwards in a swift motion.

"Fetus parens revelio!"

At once a soft green hue began to form just inches above Harry's abdomen in the shape that Hermione had just drawn with her wand. Then, as if a vine was growing out of his stomach snaking it's way toward sunlight, a small string of intense white light began to rise upwards.

After about a foot it split into two, with one side shooting off to reveal a completely see-through image of Harry's face. Harry held his breath as he watched the other image take shape and then for a second his heart stopped.

In fact, he was pretty sure that the entire world had stopped spinning because what he was seeing just didn't make any sense.

"Impossible!" Hermione hissed, causing Harry's to exhale as his face blanched.

The name that left his lips was completely hollow and completely unexpected.

"Voldemort…"

Neither spoke as they stared at the flickering image of Harry and the Dark Lord. Seconds turned into minutes and for the first time Hermione's mind was completely blank.

Suddenly the sound of a twig breaking outside brought them back to the present.

As one their heads snapped towards the shadows that could be seen gathering outside their tent.

And then all hell broke loose.

Thanks for reading. Reviews are helpful but not required. Chapters should get longer now.