CHAPTER FIVE: La Soñadora - The Dreamer (Weeks Twenty-one-Thirty)
They had hoped everything was going to go uphill from here onwards. They were very, very wrong. They were on Week twenty-one and five months pregnant. Upon looking at the baby they found that a white substance had formed around it. Ron thought it was some creature trying to suffocate the baby, and freaked out. And they were all relived to learn that it was all perfectly normal. Madam Pomfrey laughed out loud at Ron. "The white substance is called Vernix, and it protects the babies skin." The next day the trio were walking down the stairs to go to their second-class, transfiguration. They couldn't believe how tired they were, and they were only half way there.
"Oh we are so going to be late!" Hermione complained leaning against a wall waiting for Harry and Ron to catch up. They slowly walked down a long hall, to the transfiguration classroom doors, and walked in very out of breath. McGonagall glared across at them as they sat down in their seats. Ron put his head down between his legs in exhaustion, or as far as he could at least. Their stomachs were growing larger than Madam Pomfrey had expected. They were all trying to catch their breath. McGonagall walked up them and bent down to their level. She no longer looked mad, just worried again. They were starting to get used to her worried looks.
"Are you three all right; do you need to go to the Hospital ward?" She asked.
"No, we're just really out of breath." Harry told her.
"Not to mention tired." Hermione stated opening her book.
"Do our classes have to be SO far apart!" Ron complained, putting his head down on the desk. McGonagall nodded and walked back up to the class. "Mr. Potter, Miss. Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Malfoy, your illness is obviously catching up to you. You are to meet Professor Dumbledore and I in the hospital ward, after class. You'll eat lunch there. Now back to transfiguration; today we are going to transfigure a cat into..." The class lasted for an hour and a half; needless to say no one paid much attention, even though the work was getting steadily more difficult. After class the four walked slowly to the Hospital Wing; McGonagall walking beside them, giving them strange looks. After what seemed like hours they made it. They all found a seat on one of the beds, across from the main ward, McGonagall pulling up a straight-backed chair. Dumbledore, who had been summoned, walked in and Madam Pomfrey noticed their arrival.
"What's wrong? Are you having pains of any kind?" She rushed over to the small group.
"No, Professor McGonagall wanted us here. Something about a meeting." Harry calmed her down.
The relief on Madam Pomfrey's face was obvious. "Okay then, shall we proceed. What's the meeting for?" Dumbledore sat down in a chair that suddenly appeared in front of the bed.
"Well, Mr. Potter, Mrs. Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Malfoy all came extremely late to class today." The trio looked over at Draco, he just glared back at the lot of them.
"I'd just sat down when you got there." Draco answered the trio's unspoken question. They nodded.
"They all complained of being out of breath, tired," McGonagall smiled wryly, "and that there classes are to far apart." She finished.
"Ah, out of breath, very normal. Yes, I can understand all of this, this is a very big school, and classes do seem to be separated dramatically. They need to start getting more iron, but I'm afraid that won't help much. As the weeks go on from here, they are going to start getting worse. Their babies are already at least ten inches, and around thirteen ounces; they're only going to get bigger and heavier. They're also going to start to drop to the lower abdomen in the next nine weeks, making their legs cramp up. Their feet are already starting to swell." Madam Pomfrey announced cheerfully. The four groaned.
"Why did I let the three of you talk me in to this." Draco growled and Hermione glared at him.
"Their stomachs have all grown out bigger then we planned. Making it harder for them to conceal this, but they seem to be doing well. Harry and Ron still have the option of doing what Draco and Hermione are doing, take the potion that will make them appear not to be pregnant at all." She added this more for the boy's than for the teachers.
"So, what you're saying is that we need to find away to make this all easier for them. Away to get them to there classes, faster." Dumbledore repeated, stroking his beard deep in thought.
"Yes, though I'm not sure how, unless you move the classrooms together." Madam Pomfrey replied.
"Well, there are a couple of ways I see we could do this; they could be taught by themselves in a single class room, not really a very satisfactory answer, or they could use the magicvator." Dumbledore spoke still thinking. "Yes, yes the magicvator would be perfect."
"What's a magicvator?" Harry asked. Even Hermione looked confused.
"Ah, the magicvator, it's something like a muggle elevator, only it will take you anywhere on school grounds you want to go. I can set it to take you to your classes, and even to the door of your common rooms. Yes, yes that's what we'll do." The four teens looked at each other and shrugged.
The next week went by fast. They were making it to all their classes early, for the first time in their short lives. Harry and Ron decided to start taking the appearance potion. It tasted as bad as promised much to their disgust. When week twenty-two came around they all noticed something new. They kept tripping over there own two feet; they had become very clumsy. At one point as they walked out to Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid, Ron and Hermione, tripped over a root and fell forward, grabbing hold of Harry, who fell onto Draco who had been walking in front of them, his head held high. Soon all four of them were tangle up on the ground. Hagrid ran over to the group, and gave them a gentle though giant hand. Everyone except Draco accepted.
"Watch where you're going!" Draco snarled as he walked quickly away.
"Boy he's moody, that git." Ron stated.
"I think were all a little moody." Harry mumbled, and he glared at Draco, who'd found his two buddies Crabbe and Goyle. That night they all walked into the Hospital ward complaining that their fingers and wrists hurt a lot. Madam Pomfrey gave them all ice packs to put on their hands.
"These ice packs never get hot, so take them with you, and put them on your hands whenever they start to hurt. Also, your babies should be able to hear now, so be careful what you say. You should start reading, talking and even singing to your babies." Malfoy snorted and shook his head. "It's good for the baby, you don't have to do it in front of anyone, just when you get some private time. Come back and let me know when your feet start to get unbearable, I have something that might work to ease them." With that she turned around and walked out to help her other patients. The group looked down at their swollen feet and then shrugged.
Week twenty-three came and they found that their babies were all at least a pound. Hermione almost cried as she looked at her weight, only to learn that she would be gaining around half a pound every week from then on. They were all eating breakfast about midweek when they all found they had craving for a particular food.
"Oh, I wonder what the house elves would think if I asked for mint ice-cream for breakfast?" Hermione asked. A bowl of ice cream appeared in front of her. She grinned happily as she dug in. Seeing this Harry jumped on it.
"What I really want are chicken legs!" A pile appeared in front of him also.
"I'd like chocolate." Ron stated longingly. Chocolate bars of every kind hit his plate. "What about our strict diet?" He asked filling his pockets and face with the candy.
"It can't hurt us this one time." Hermione mumbled through her second bowl. "We just can't make a habit of this." Draco who had just walked by saw them get what they wanted, so he sat down at his table and ordered a large jar of pickles. As they appeared on his plate he smiled and devoured half the bottle in minutes flat.
At week twenty-four they had officially been pregnant for sixth months. The babies were a little over a pound, and the teens found that for some reason, their gums were being affected. Every time they brushed their teeth, their gums started to bleed. Madam Pomfrey told them that it was normal, and gave them soft toothbrushes. Week twenty-five came and it brought a new unexpected surprise, at least unexpected to Harry and Ron.
"Is it just me or is it really bright out here?" Harry asked as they stepped out of the school and on to a path outside.
"Your right, it's really bright." Ron stated, holding his hands over his eyes as a shield. Hermione did the same.
"That's not all, my eyes feel like sand, I think we should go tell Madam Pomfrey, she'd have something to stop this. She always does." Hermione turned around and started walking towards the doors. Harry and Ron groaned and walked behind her mumbling something obscure about spending more time in the hospital ward then anywhere else in the school, Hermione just ignored them.
Looking back, week twenty-six would be the week all four teens hated the most. It was Tuesday night, and Harry had just gone to sleep...
Harry looked around the conical dark tunnel; the only thing he could see was from the small, isolated light his wand cast. 'How did I get here?' He thought as he started to carefully walk up through the tunnel in search of an exit. He heard a loud cry, and looked over to his side, to see a small boy about the age of one, curled up in a small corner. He ran over to the baby but before he could get to him pain shot through his scar and the boy was swept up by a familiar man with blood red eyes. Voldemort. Crimson handed fiend. The boy started screaming and screaming and screaming and holding out his hands; out over Voldemort's shoulders, screaming and screaming, louder and louder.
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" Harry sat up in bed screaming in sympathy, terror and half formed memory sweat streaming down his face.
Ron fell asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow. Only to wake again immediately, sitting in a rocking chair, holding a small baby boy with wildly red hair. He smiled down at him, and the baby smiled back. He heard a yell from outside his door and looked up to see his mother, and dad standing in the doorway, shame and loathing on their faces. Ron's smile faded.
"How could you." The woman asked, detest showing clearly through in her voice.
"How could I what, mother?"
"You are a shame to this family." His father added in.
"Mother, dad, what did I do?"
"I never want to see your face or the face of that...it, again." With that Mrs. Weasley stormed out of the room.
"As of this moment consider yourself disowned." Mr. Weasley followed his wife. Leaving his son alone and desolate in the world.
"Why!" Ron yelled, and sat up in bed. He looked over to Harry's bed, to see him in the same state. Sharing a wordless glance that was older than they were; understanding, they left the room walking in a dazed state down to the common room.
Hermione stood at the edge of a steep cliff and looked down, down at the ocean beneath her; she slowly looked down, then looked at the two babies in the carriage behind her. She turned around to go to them, but the ground below her broke apart, she suddenly found herself falling. Falling towards bright blue swirling, moving water, water that seemed, alive. Right before she slammed into the ground she sat up, screaming. The others in her dorm mumbled but didn't wake. Shivering in a private fear as acute as the boys, she wrapped a robe around herself and walked out to the common room. Sitting down she waited for her friends to arrive.
"Nightmare?" She asked them, her voice seemed distant, but already becoming more composed. They only nodded. The rest of the night was spent trying to figure out the dreams, and what they might mean or be. After getting almost no sleep at all that night, the three teens were dead on their feet and showing it by the next morning, and feeling sick. Instead of going to breakfast they got on the magicvator and went to the hospital ward. Madam Pomfrey almost dropped the potion she had in her hand at the sight of them, drawn, pale and miserable as they were.
"Good heavens, children, you look disastrous, what's wrong?" She helped the teens on to separate beds, where they laid down.
"We had nightmares last night, and couldn't go back to sleep." Harry mumbled just loud enough for her to hear.
Ron looked across to them "Nightmares, but awful ones, really bad stuff was happening, was terrible really..." Ron trailed off as he remembered the night before and his dreams.
"Now we really don't feel all that well." Hermione said through a yawn.
"Take this sleeping potion; it'll do you some good. You have fevers, all three of you." She gave them all the sleeping potions. When they didn't show up for transfiguration at all, McGonagall hurried into the Hospital Ward, to find three very pale and sleepy teens.
"What happened?" She demanded instantly of Madam Pomfrey.
"Ah, apparently they have been so close their bodies are doing everything at the same time. Not on its own something to worry about. They all had nightmares that kept them up for most of the night. Now they're running low-grade fevers, and have anemia. Not a good or nice combination; but not unheard of either." Madam Pomfrey explained, placing a cool rag on Hermione's forehead and neck. Then going to do the same thing for Harry and Ron. What's more worrying to me is what they dreamed about.
"Anemia? What's that? I have no time for feverish dreams, but anemia sounds serious."
"Low on red blood cells. But don't worry, I have it all under control, they should be back up in a day or two." McGonagall gave a curt, worried nod and stood staring at them for a moment, she swung around abruptly and walked back out. Around twenty minutes later, Dumbledore walked in, with Draco.
"Mr. Malfoy, what can I do for you?" Pomfrey asked.
"I don't feel so good." He mumbled. Pomfrey felt his head.
She half smiled "Yes, looks like you got what the others have, come on, lay down in a bed, I'll get you a sleeping potion, which should get you taken care of." Draco nodded, and lay down. She quickly gave him the glass of steaming yellowish potion, and turned to Dumbledore who looked straight past her at the other pregnant teenagers.
"They will be alright, won't they?" He asked in his quiet, calm voice.
"Of course they will." Pomfrey stated, and got to work with the now sleeping Draco.
The four teens ended up staying in the hospital ward a bit longer, after having more nightmares. Their fevers kept going up and down and up and down like a muggle roller coaster ride. The group were already on there first day of week thirty-seven, when Madam Pomfrey announced that they were fit enough to go and rest in their own beds, until the time for classes to start. The four ditched the common rooms and went to the library with all their books; OWL exams were at the end of the week. For once in Harry and Ron's life they felt prepared for the testing. With not being able to do anything else, the two had been studying hard all year long. They were both sick of it, but they were still studying. Two days later, on the first day of the exams, they were told their blood pressure was slightly high, but that that was entirely normal. On Thursday they all got up early, had breakfast and got ready for the OWLs. They were all nervous, understandably, and a little stressed out. But they got through the day, and the next and the day after that until they were finished. By the end however, they all had to be admitted back into the hospital wing. As there stress levels reached new heights so did their blood pressure. They each took turns dipping their feet in to a basin with warm water in it. It was one nice sensation in a world full of unpleasant ones.
At week twenty-eight their babies were all around two and a half pounds and fourteen inches, the four teens were constantly complaining about leg cramps. Madam Pomfrey decided it was time for them to start taking a parenting class. The group would have to go every evening after dinner until school ended, to take a class. They weren't happy. More time lost, invaded into by the conditions they were under. However they were happy about the fact that they were officially now on their third trimester. It was celebration time again.
"You four have come a long way, you've all been through a lot, too much really; and are not only two months away from giving birth, but on your third trimester. Your babies have developed lungs, so if something was to happen and we had to take the babies out earlier then we expect, then they'll be able to breath with help. Not a situation we want to test, but a possibility none the less. Your almost there, our next celebration will be after the births." Pomfrey was grinning from ear to ear. She was at least partly to credit for the good health of her patients.
Week twenty-nine was almost uneventful. Harry and Draco were complaining that they feel like they have been pregnant forever, while Hermione and Ron were saying they weren't ready for the baby to come; they were all sleeping with pillows under their stomachs now. At week thirty, their babies all weighed around three pounds and were about fifteen inches. They could feel the effects as the baby started to gradually move into their lower abdomen, they were all going to the restroom all the time. They all made another pact, that after school let out in two days they would start doing things they knew they wouldn't be able to do once they had their babies. Draco told them he would participate, even though he wasn't keeping the baby. If for no better reason than there was nothing better to do with life alone in the castle over the holidays.
They had hoped everything was going to go uphill from here onwards. They were very, very wrong. They were on Week twenty-one and five months pregnant. Upon looking at the baby they found that a white substance had formed around it. Ron thought it was some creature trying to suffocate the baby, and freaked out. And they were all relived to learn that it was all perfectly normal. Madam Pomfrey laughed out loud at Ron. "The white substance is called Vernix, and it protects the babies skin." The next day the trio were walking down the stairs to go to their second-class, transfiguration. They couldn't believe how tired they were, and they were only half way there.
"Oh we are so going to be late!" Hermione complained leaning against a wall waiting for Harry and Ron to catch up. They slowly walked down a long hall, to the transfiguration classroom doors, and walked in very out of breath. McGonagall glared across at them as they sat down in their seats. Ron put his head down between his legs in exhaustion, or as far as he could at least. Their stomachs were growing larger than Madam Pomfrey had expected. They were all trying to catch their breath. McGonagall walked up them and bent down to their level. She no longer looked mad, just worried again. They were starting to get used to her worried looks.
"Are you three all right; do you need to go to the Hospital ward?" She asked.
"No, we're just really out of breath." Harry told her.
"Not to mention tired." Hermione stated opening her book.
"Do our classes have to be SO far apart!" Ron complained, putting his head down on the desk. McGonagall nodded and walked back up to the class. "Mr. Potter, Miss. Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Malfoy, your illness is obviously catching up to you. You are to meet Professor Dumbledore and I in the hospital ward, after class. You'll eat lunch there. Now back to transfiguration; today we are going to transfigure a cat into..." The class lasted for an hour and a half; needless to say no one paid much attention, even though the work was getting steadily more difficult. After class the four walked slowly to the Hospital Wing; McGonagall walking beside them, giving them strange looks. After what seemed like hours they made it. They all found a seat on one of the beds, across from the main ward, McGonagall pulling up a straight-backed chair. Dumbledore, who had been summoned, walked in and Madam Pomfrey noticed their arrival.
"What's wrong? Are you having pains of any kind?" She rushed over to the small group.
"No, Professor McGonagall wanted us here. Something about a meeting." Harry calmed her down.
The relief on Madam Pomfrey's face was obvious. "Okay then, shall we proceed. What's the meeting for?" Dumbledore sat down in a chair that suddenly appeared in front of the bed.
"Well, Mr. Potter, Mrs. Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Malfoy all came extremely late to class today." The trio looked over at Draco, he just glared back at the lot of them.
"I'd just sat down when you got there." Draco answered the trio's unspoken question. They nodded.
"They all complained of being out of breath, tired," McGonagall smiled wryly, "and that there classes are to far apart." She finished.
"Ah, out of breath, very normal. Yes, I can understand all of this, this is a very big school, and classes do seem to be separated dramatically. They need to start getting more iron, but I'm afraid that won't help much. As the weeks go on from here, they are going to start getting worse. Their babies are already at least ten inches, and around thirteen ounces; they're only going to get bigger and heavier. They're also going to start to drop to the lower abdomen in the next nine weeks, making their legs cramp up. Their feet are already starting to swell." Madam Pomfrey announced cheerfully. The four groaned.
"Why did I let the three of you talk me in to this." Draco growled and Hermione glared at him.
"Their stomachs have all grown out bigger then we planned. Making it harder for them to conceal this, but they seem to be doing well. Harry and Ron still have the option of doing what Draco and Hermione are doing, take the potion that will make them appear not to be pregnant at all." She added this more for the boy's than for the teachers.
"So, what you're saying is that we need to find away to make this all easier for them. Away to get them to there classes, faster." Dumbledore repeated, stroking his beard deep in thought.
"Yes, though I'm not sure how, unless you move the classrooms together." Madam Pomfrey replied.
"Well, there are a couple of ways I see we could do this; they could be taught by themselves in a single class room, not really a very satisfactory answer, or they could use the magicvator." Dumbledore spoke still thinking. "Yes, yes the magicvator would be perfect."
"What's a magicvator?" Harry asked. Even Hermione looked confused.
"Ah, the magicvator, it's something like a muggle elevator, only it will take you anywhere on school grounds you want to go. I can set it to take you to your classes, and even to the door of your common rooms. Yes, yes that's what we'll do." The four teens looked at each other and shrugged.
The next week went by fast. They were making it to all their classes early, for the first time in their short lives. Harry and Ron decided to start taking the appearance potion. It tasted as bad as promised much to their disgust. When week twenty-two came around they all noticed something new. They kept tripping over there own two feet; they had become very clumsy. At one point as they walked out to Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid, Ron and Hermione, tripped over a root and fell forward, grabbing hold of Harry, who fell onto Draco who had been walking in front of them, his head held high. Soon all four of them were tangle up on the ground. Hagrid ran over to the group, and gave them a gentle though giant hand. Everyone except Draco accepted.
"Watch where you're going!" Draco snarled as he walked quickly away.
"Boy he's moody, that git." Ron stated.
"I think were all a little moody." Harry mumbled, and he glared at Draco, who'd found his two buddies Crabbe and Goyle. That night they all walked into the Hospital ward complaining that their fingers and wrists hurt a lot. Madam Pomfrey gave them all ice packs to put on their hands.
"These ice packs never get hot, so take them with you, and put them on your hands whenever they start to hurt. Also, your babies should be able to hear now, so be careful what you say. You should start reading, talking and even singing to your babies." Malfoy snorted and shook his head. "It's good for the baby, you don't have to do it in front of anyone, just when you get some private time. Come back and let me know when your feet start to get unbearable, I have something that might work to ease them." With that she turned around and walked out to help her other patients. The group looked down at their swollen feet and then shrugged.
Week twenty-three came and they found that their babies were all at least a pound. Hermione almost cried as she looked at her weight, only to learn that she would be gaining around half a pound every week from then on. They were all eating breakfast about midweek when they all found they had craving for a particular food.
"Oh, I wonder what the house elves would think if I asked for mint ice-cream for breakfast?" Hermione asked. A bowl of ice cream appeared in front of her. She grinned happily as she dug in. Seeing this Harry jumped on it.
"What I really want are chicken legs!" A pile appeared in front of him also.
"I'd like chocolate." Ron stated longingly. Chocolate bars of every kind hit his plate. "What about our strict diet?" He asked filling his pockets and face with the candy.
"It can't hurt us this one time." Hermione mumbled through her second bowl. "We just can't make a habit of this." Draco who had just walked by saw them get what they wanted, so he sat down at his table and ordered a large jar of pickles. As they appeared on his plate he smiled and devoured half the bottle in minutes flat.
At week twenty-four they had officially been pregnant for sixth months. The babies were a little over a pound, and the teens found that for some reason, their gums were being affected. Every time they brushed their teeth, their gums started to bleed. Madam Pomfrey told them that it was normal, and gave them soft toothbrushes. Week twenty-five came and it brought a new unexpected surprise, at least unexpected to Harry and Ron.
"Is it just me or is it really bright out here?" Harry asked as they stepped out of the school and on to a path outside.
"Your right, it's really bright." Ron stated, holding his hands over his eyes as a shield. Hermione did the same.
"That's not all, my eyes feel like sand, I think we should go tell Madam Pomfrey, she'd have something to stop this. She always does." Hermione turned around and started walking towards the doors. Harry and Ron groaned and walked behind her mumbling something obscure about spending more time in the hospital ward then anywhere else in the school, Hermione just ignored them.
Looking back, week twenty-six would be the week all four teens hated the most. It was Tuesday night, and Harry had just gone to sleep...
Harry looked around the conical dark tunnel; the only thing he could see was from the small, isolated light his wand cast. 'How did I get here?' He thought as he started to carefully walk up through the tunnel in search of an exit. He heard a loud cry, and looked over to his side, to see a small boy about the age of one, curled up in a small corner. He ran over to the baby but before he could get to him pain shot through his scar and the boy was swept up by a familiar man with blood red eyes. Voldemort. Crimson handed fiend. The boy started screaming and screaming and screaming and holding out his hands; out over Voldemort's shoulders, screaming and screaming, louder and louder.
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" Harry sat up in bed screaming in sympathy, terror and half formed memory sweat streaming down his face.
Ron fell asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow. Only to wake again immediately, sitting in a rocking chair, holding a small baby boy with wildly red hair. He smiled down at him, and the baby smiled back. He heard a yell from outside his door and looked up to see his mother, and dad standing in the doorway, shame and loathing on their faces. Ron's smile faded.
"How could you." The woman asked, detest showing clearly through in her voice.
"How could I what, mother?"
"You are a shame to this family." His father added in.
"Mother, dad, what did I do?"
"I never want to see your face or the face of that...it, again." With that Mrs. Weasley stormed out of the room.
"As of this moment consider yourself disowned." Mr. Weasley followed his wife. Leaving his son alone and desolate in the world.
"Why!" Ron yelled, and sat up in bed. He looked over to Harry's bed, to see him in the same state. Sharing a wordless glance that was older than they were; understanding, they left the room walking in a dazed state down to the common room.
Hermione stood at the edge of a steep cliff and looked down, down at the ocean beneath her; she slowly looked down, then looked at the two babies in the carriage behind her. She turned around to go to them, but the ground below her broke apart, she suddenly found herself falling. Falling towards bright blue swirling, moving water, water that seemed, alive. Right before she slammed into the ground she sat up, screaming. The others in her dorm mumbled but didn't wake. Shivering in a private fear as acute as the boys, she wrapped a robe around herself and walked out to the common room. Sitting down she waited for her friends to arrive.
"Nightmare?" She asked them, her voice seemed distant, but already becoming more composed. They only nodded. The rest of the night was spent trying to figure out the dreams, and what they might mean or be. After getting almost no sleep at all that night, the three teens were dead on their feet and showing it by the next morning, and feeling sick. Instead of going to breakfast they got on the magicvator and went to the hospital ward. Madam Pomfrey almost dropped the potion she had in her hand at the sight of them, drawn, pale and miserable as they were.
"Good heavens, children, you look disastrous, what's wrong?" She helped the teens on to separate beds, where they laid down.
"We had nightmares last night, and couldn't go back to sleep." Harry mumbled just loud enough for her to hear.
Ron looked across to them "Nightmares, but awful ones, really bad stuff was happening, was terrible really..." Ron trailed off as he remembered the night before and his dreams.
"Now we really don't feel all that well." Hermione said through a yawn.
"Take this sleeping potion; it'll do you some good. You have fevers, all three of you." She gave them all the sleeping potions. When they didn't show up for transfiguration at all, McGonagall hurried into the Hospital Ward, to find three very pale and sleepy teens.
"What happened?" She demanded instantly of Madam Pomfrey.
"Ah, apparently they have been so close their bodies are doing everything at the same time. Not on its own something to worry about. They all had nightmares that kept them up for most of the night. Now they're running low-grade fevers, and have anemia. Not a good or nice combination; but not unheard of either." Madam Pomfrey explained, placing a cool rag on Hermione's forehead and neck. Then going to do the same thing for Harry and Ron. What's more worrying to me is what they dreamed about.
"Anemia? What's that? I have no time for feverish dreams, but anemia sounds serious."
"Low on red blood cells. But don't worry, I have it all under control, they should be back up in a day or two." McGonagall gave a curt, worried nod and stood staring at them for a moment, she swung around abruptly and walked back out. Around twenty minutes later, Dumbledore walked in, with Draco.
"Mr. Malfoy, what can I do for you?" Pomfrey asked.
"I don't feel so good." He mumbled. Pomfrey felt his head.
She half smiled "Yes, looks like you got what the others have, come on, lay down in a bed, I'll get you a sleeping potion, which should get you taken care of." Draco nodded, and lay down. She quickly gave him the glass of steaming yellowish potion, and turned to Dumbledore who looked straight past her at the other pregnant teenagers.
"They will be alright, won't they?" He asked in his quiet, calm voice.
"Of course they will." Pomfrey stated, and got to work with the now sleeping Draco.
The four teens ended up staying in the hospital ward a bit longer, after having more nightmares. Their fevers kept going up and down and up and down like a muggle roller coaster ride. The group were already on there first day of week thirty-seven, when Madam Pomfrey announced that they were fit enough to go and rest in their own beds, until the time for classes to start. The four ditched the common rooms and went to the library with all their books; OWL exams were at the end of the week. For once in Harry and Ron's life they felt prepared for the testing. With not being able to do anything else, the two had been studying hard all year long. They were both sick of it, but they were still studying. Two days later, on the first day of the exams, they were told their blood pressure was slightly high, but that that was entirely normal. On Thursday they all got up early, had breakfast and got ready for the OWLs. They were all nervous, understandably, and a little stressed out. But they got through the day, and the next and the day after that until they were finished. By the end however, they all had to be admitted back into the hospital wing. As there stress levels reached new heights so did their blood pressure. They each took turns dipping their feet in to a basin with warm water in it. It was one nice sensation in a world full of unpleasant ones.
At week twenty-eight their babies were all around two and a half pounds and fourteen inches, the four teens were constantly complaining about leg cramps. Madam Pomfrey decided it was time for them to start taking a parenting class. The group would have to go every evening after dinner until school ended, to take a class. They weren't happy. More time lost, invaded into by the conditions they were under. However they were happy about the fact that they were officially now on their third trimester. It was celebration time again.
"You four have come a long way, you've all been through a lot, too much really; and are not only two months away from giving birth, but on your third trimester. Your babies have developed lungs, so if something was to happen and we had to take the babies out earlier then we expect, then they'll be able to breath with help. Not a situation we want to test, but a possibility none the less. Your almost there, our next celebration will be after the births." Pomfrey was grinning from ear to ear. She was at least partly to credit for the good health of her patients.
Week twenty-nine was almost uneventful. Harry and Draco were complaining that they feel like they have been pregnant forever, while Hermione and Ron were saying they weren't ready for the baby to come; they were all sleeping with pillows under their stomachs now. At week thirty, their babies all weighed around three pounds and were about fifteen inches. They could feel the effects as the baby started to gradually move into their lower abdomen, they were all going to the restroom all the time. They all made another pact, that after school let out in two days they would start doing things they knew they wouldn't be able to do once they had their babies. Draco told them he would participate, even though he wasn't keeping the baby. If for no better reason than there was nothing better to do with life alone in the castle over the holidays.