CHAPTER SIX: Five New Lives in the World

It was the last day of school, everyone had arranged to stay, Ron had finally got up the nerve to ask his parents to come, and they were due the next day on the Hogwarts train. Ron was extra nervous; it did not help that today they would be getting their results for their OWLs. They each had held the envelope with the scores in their hands, but no one had dared open them. They were all sitting on beds in the hospital ward after Harry and Hermione started having early contractions, not a pretty sight. They were all on week thirty-one, and the fact that the two teens were already having contractions worried Pomfrey.

Ron took a deep breath, "Okay, let's open our test scores at the same time," he suggested. Everyone nodded. "Okay, on the count of three. One. Two... Three." They all ripped open the pale green envelopes and looked at their scores, all of their jaws dropping in unison. "I-I can't believe it...I just can't believe it...I got really good scores in-in everything! I did better then Fred and George!" Ron exclaimed, and he bounced slightly up and down.

"Wow, I got really good scores too." Harry whispered, staring at his page, making sure it didn't change on him.

"I got a perfect score in Transfiguration and Potions. The rest are all within only a couple of points from being perfect." Hermione smiled complacently.

"I... I didn't do so well." Draco admitted. "I almost failed Herbology, but I did well in all my other subjects." He added almost defensively. He wasn't going to be shown up that far in front of Potter and his minions. "Would have done better if I hadn't had to deal with being pregnant." He growled, and folded test score parchment up and placed it in his robes.

It was early in the next morning when Mr. and Mrs. Weasley rushed into the hospital ward, not knowing what was so wrong that Ron couldn't come home, and wouldn't tell them via owl. It was seven in the morning and all four teens were asleep in their separate hospital beds. All the other students were leaving to go home. Madam Pomfrey greeted them with a happy smile, and had them sit down. It took her a few moments to wake up Ron, who woke up Harry for moral support, who in turn woke up Hermione because he was becoming decidedly nervous himself. They let Draco sleep. Mrs. Weasley rushed up to her sons' side and clamped a hand over Ron's forehead.

"Well you don't have a fever. What's wrong with you? Hello Harry dear. You too Hermione." Ron smiled a nervous smile. They started at the beginning with their rather improbable story.

"Well, a long, long time ago..." May as well have told you all in an Owl if you couldn't add a bit of drama.

"Seems like years." Harry muttered under his breath.

"It was only last October!" Hermione rolled her eyes.

"As I was saying, a long time ago, way back in October of last year, there was an accident in the library. Harry, Hermione, and I had got permission to study some books in the Restricted section, on different curses and spells to help fight You-Know-Who."

"Voldemort!" Harry stated aloud, as always annoyed at the nickname. Everyone flinched.

Poking the corner of the carpet with a shoe and pointedly not looking up in embarrassment, Harry blushed, mumbling, "Sorry, not in a great mood today." Everyone nodded, Mrs. Weasley smiling sympathetically, Ron carried on.

"Anyways, we'd some how got off track when Hermione had found a spell on pregnancy. It was in a dark arts spell book and seemed very out of place at the time." Ron glowered at the memory. "We were talking about it, any how. That's when Neville walked in, he came over to us to tell us about how he'd found a spell that would make whatever spell you were reading or talking about last come true. Well he then went on and did the spell, and for the first time in his miserable little life, got a spell right." Ron went silent. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sat silently, the dawn breaking in a horribly grey sea.

"So what does that have to do with why your here...oh...you mean..." Mrs. Weasley started trailing off as she thought about what Ron had just said. It sank in slowly, as bad and rather significant news has a habit of doing.

"Mom, Dad, as strange as this is, I, Harry, Hermione and Draco are all pregnant." There wasn't really a gentle way of putting it. The Weasleys sat there silently for a minute. Mr. Weasley was the first to find his voice.

"How far along?" He couldn't quite keep something bleak out of his tone.

"We'll be eight months pregnant next week." Hermione told him quietly. Soberly.

"I'm having a baby boy, Harry is having a boy, Draco is having a girl, and Hermione... well she's having twins; a boy and a girl." Ron explained.

Harry looked up again. Pushing his glasses further up his nose in a gesture of agitation, he started to expand on Ron's words. "It's been kept very quiet." He didn't want the Weasleys to feel they were the last to be told about their own son. "Only Madam Pomfrey, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall know."

"But won't Draco's family need to know he's bringing home a baby?" Mrs. Weasley demanded, and Hermione has a family, so do you really.

"I'm not bringing home a baby." Draco said, surprising them all. No one had noticed him join them from the other room. The voices, rising in shock, had woken him. "Harry said that if I had the baby, he would take her. So no one in my family will ever know. Will they Potter?" It was a rhetorical question. Harry nodded.

"This is ridiculous! You're how old Ron? Fifteen? That's far too young to have children! And with two of you having two! What are you going to do? What about vacations? What about term time? You're old enough to leave Hogwarts I suppose, but what'll you do about work?" Mrs. Weasley was on a role now.

"We've been talking about it, with pretty much everyone, but we haven't come up with any plans for the holidays yet. During the school year, Professor Dumbledore said some things about things, really just that it would all work out. Perhaps I could stay at the Leaky Cauldron during the summer?" Harry sounded as unsure as he felt.

This was help needed. Mrs. Weasley excelled at looking after people. Harry was not going to be allowed to be an exception. "The Leaky Cauldron, nonsense. You can come and spend the summers with us Harry. I wont take no for an answer. You're going to need all the help you can get." Mr. Weasley pulled a face. He felt very sorry for his son at that point.

"So what are you planning on naming them?" Mr. Weasley asked, filling the silence after Harry's stammered thank you. He was still trying to come to terms that he was about to be a grandfather. He suddenly felt very, very old.

"We don't know yet. We've all been thinking about it, but I don't think any of us have come to a final decision." Hermione smiled, thinking of her own names.

"I'm thinking Daniel James Potter for my boy, and Lily Guinevere Potter for Draco's girl." Harry announced.

"Potter? My baby is going to have your last name?" Draco sat up suddenly, back ram rod straight with fury.

"Well she can't have your last name, now can she? That would blow the whole hiding thing." Harry threw back. Draco shut up, but he still seemed unhappy.

"Well, I'm thinking about Julie Elizabeth Granger for my girl and Soroush Ambrose Granger for my little boy." She grinned from ear to ear.

"Okay, well I have to admit I've been thinking about it too, and I may be naming my son John Alfred Weasley." His parents smiled.

"Those are all lovely names. John Alfred's a nice, sturdy name for a boy dear. Now tell me, Hermione, do your parents know yet?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"Not yet, they're due to arrive tonight. I'll tell them then"

That night came too quickly. The other Weasley kids still had no idea why they were forced to stay at School and the twins were kicking up a fuss about it. They'd find out at the same time the Grangers would. Before they knew it they were explaining the whole thing again, to the Grangers and the younger Weasleys.

"...unfortunately, that was one of the few times one of his spells worked properly." Hermione shook her head, and waited for her parents to react. An assortment of Weasleys were also silent, trying to digest and come to a conclusion.

"So you're...you're pregnant?" Mrs. Granger finally asked, having sat staring into her tea mug for far longer than silence can comfortably be held for. Mr. Granger had his arm slung about his wife's shoulders and seemed to be ignoring his parents' presence for the moment. Hermione nodded almost imperceptibly. Mrs. Granger burst into tears and hugged what she still considered her little girl.

"I'll be eight months along next week, and what's an even bigger shock is the fact that I am having twins. A boy and a girl." Hermione found herself in an even bigger hug. Part happiness that her daughter was still here, telling her this herself and trusted her Mother enough to do so; and part a little bit of worried despair mingling in.

"So if the spell worked, then Ron, and Harry are pregnant too?" George squeaked. Ron nodded grimly. He wasn't expecting brotherly sympathy and help from the twins.

"Yeah, I'm having a boy, Harry is having a girl, and Draco over there," Ron gestured wildly with a hand at Draco who had been listening in on the conversation from a corner, "is having a girl, which Harry will be keeping." Ron announced with a calm borne of nerves. All the boy's and Ginny just sat there with there mouths hanging open. The teens spent the rest of the night being bombarded by questions from all sides.

Weeks thirty-two and thirty-three passed without much happening. The parents to be were all gaining a pound a week. Harry and Hermione kept having contractions. By week thirty-four their babies were all around four and a half pounds and seventeen inches. They had their heads down in the uterus, and all of the teens feet, hands, faces and ankles were all swollen. The cure, drink a lot of water. At week thirty-five the teens started to really complain about tingling and numbness down in the pelvic region, they were assured that that was normal. At week thirty-six, they all cheered, at making it to nine months. The teens had each gained between twenty-five to thirty pounds with the pregnancy. Hermione a bit more, with twice the number.

It wasn't until week thirty-eight came that they really celebrated. They were now at full term, and could go into delivery at anytime. Madam Pomfrey decided that, unless any of them went into a natural labor earlier, she would want to have the babies sometime during week thirty-nine. The teens were relived when the baby had dropped so far, that they could finally start to breath and eat a little more normally again. By week thirty-eight all of the white Vernix had disappeared from the baby, and finally, week thirty-nine arrived. All were ready to get their babies out and start parenthood. By this time, the teens were no longer allowed to leave their hospital beds. Their babies were all around seven to nine pounds. It was the week of Harry's birthday, and they all decided, with the exception of Draco, who had to be coerced into a decision at all, that they would like to deliver on that day. Six birthdays all at once; now that would be neat. So they waited, and Thursday finally arrived. After eating a piece of birthday cake, and Harry opening his presents, it was mid afternoon. Madam Pomfrey decided it was time. Five small basinets were brought into the room where they would be having the babies. It was decided that Hermione would have her babies like the boys were. There was too much risk involved otherwise. Now there was some talk about whether apparrating the babies out would work; in a place where you can't apparate. They were assured that this was not technically apparrating, it just looked like it. Pomfrey started with Draco, Mrs. Weasley stood beside him, holding his hand had Pomfrey carefully cut the umbilical cord, and then immediately waved her wand. Suddenly the baby was no longer in his stomach, but on top, screaming. Pomfrey smiled, as she wiped a now-shrieking-in-shock baby off, and used her wand to make sure nothing was blocking the little girls airways.

"Mr. Malfoy, would you like to hold her?" Draco nodded, carefully, so carefully taking the baby from Madam Pomfrey. He just sat there for a moment, before kissing her on the cheek quietly. Looking up at Madam Pomfrey, "she's so...so tiny."

"She's a healthy size." Madam Pomfrey smiled gently at Draco. He seemed strangely deflated now. Minus his air of confidence and money, away from his gang of followers and alone, he seemed very small, young and fragile himself. He was shuddering slightly. Suddenly he thrust her out to Mrs. Weasley with a hoarse "you take her".

Mrs. Weasley held her and put her in the first basinet gently. Not taking her eyes off Draco while she did so.

Harry was next. He did cry when he saw his baby. Sobbing, but happy tears this time. He held on to his baby, clinging to him; and asked for Lily too.

He watched as Ron's baby was delivered next. Ron too held on to his baby, reluctant to give the him away for even a moment now that he had him finally and smiled at Harry as they all watched as Pomfrey carefully cut both babies cords in Hermione, then got them out.

Hermione wore the same look of shock mingled with joy that Harry and Ron did. Mrs. Weasley had burst into tears now, and Mrs. Granger was holding one twin while Hermione cuddled the other. There was an air of general relief now that all babies were safe. Draco seemed simply dazed and almost broken.

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BIRTH CERTIFICATE

Lily Guinevere Potter

Born: July 31, 2003

Time: 12:20 PM

Weight: 7 1/2 lbs. 3 oz

Size: 20 1/2 inches

Baby born to Draco Malfoy but adopted by Harry Potter.

__________________ _________________

Draco Malfoy Harry Potter

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BIRTH CERTIFICATE

Daniel James Potter

Born: July 31, 2003

Time: 12:30 PM

Weight: 9 lbs. 7 oz

Size: 21 1/2 inches

Baby born to Harry Potter.

_________________

Harry Potter

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BIRTH CERTIFICATE

John Alfred Weasley

Born: July 31, 2003

Time: 12:40 PM

Weight: 7 lbs 0 oz

Size: 20 inches

Baby born to Ronald Weasley.

________________

Ronald Weasley

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BIRTH CERTIFICATE

Julie Elizabeth Granger

Born: July 31, 2003

Time: 12:50 PM

Weight: 7 lbs 4oz

Size: 19 inches

Baby born to Hermione Granger.

Twin to Soroush Ambros Granger.

________________

Hermione Granger

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BIRTH CERTIFICATE

Soroush Ambros Granger

Born: July 31, 2003

Time: 12:51 PM

Weight: 7 lbs 4oz

Size: 19 1/2 Inches

Baby born to Hermione Granger.

Twin to Julie Elizabeth Granger.

________________

Hermione Granger

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End of Story One...