To Rosy: thank you so much for your review…you don't know how happy that made me to finally get a little feedback about this story! You live in Mexico? That's so cool! I have a ton of relatives that live down there, I may even go and visit them soon. Thanks again for your review, I hope you continue reading!
Chapter 4 is up! I hope anyone reading this will follow Rosy's example and leave a review or two, because they are what keeps me going.
I'm thinking about changing the title of this story…let me know what you think or if you have any title ideas yourself.
And now I give you…
Chapter four
Purple Spots
Harry knocked on the door. He waited there for a minute before a petite redhead answered it.
"Hi Ginny." Harry said as he leaned down to kiss her.
"Hey, what took you so long?" Ginny asked, her arms around his neck.
"Traffic. And it didn't help that the cab driver almost got us killed."
Another kiss.
"Twice."
Ginny pulled away, something that had been on her mind came spilling out. "Harry, when are we going to tell them?"
"Tell them what?" He moved to her neck.
She pulled away again. "You know what." She gave him a serious look, "When are we going to tell them about us?"
"When the time is right." He said, making another attempt to get close to her.
"When? When will 'the time be right?'" Ginny asked sternly. "This thing between us has been going on for over a year! I can't stand lying to everyone, especially Hermione. She's my best friend."
Ginny walked from the door to a large armchair in her living room. She plopped down and stared at the wall.
Harry followed her and sat on the arm of the chair. "Ginny, I'm sorry." He needed to think of something un-stupid to say very fast, and he thought "sorry" was a good start.
He continued, "I don't really know what to say. It's not like I'm embarrassed of you," Ginny made a noise of disbelief. "I just, I'm not ready to tell everyone. I don't want to mess up what we have."
Ginny snapped around in her chair to face him, "And what do we have, Harry? Please, I'd like to know."
Harry stared at the floor for a minute and looked into her eyes. "I don't know about you, but I think it's love. Actually, I know it's love."
Ginny's cold, stern demeanor immediately melted off her face. She looked up at him. "Do you mean it?"
"Of course," Harry said and grinned hugely.
She couldn't help but grab him into a tight hug. She whispered into his shoulder, "I love you too."
"In fact, Ginny," Harry said throwing all fears aside, "There's something I've been wanting to ask you…"
Meanwhile, across town, Hermione was pacing back and forth in her bedroom.
Don't panic, she thought, everything is fine, I'm sure I'm not- She wouldn't even let herself think it. Hermione stopped pacing because she was beginning to feel a little dizzy. She sat down on her bed. I need to talk to Ron. She stood up and started towards the door. No, I need to be absolutely positive before I worry him for nothing. I'm only about a week late. I'm probably just blowing this way out of proportion.
The next morning, Ron awoke with a start. He'd had the same odd dream that he had the night he and Hermione slept together. In fact, he had it every night since then.
Not ten seconds after he opened his eyes he heard a knock on his apartment door. He sat up, stretched and meandered to the source of the noise. He looked out his tiny peephole fixed on the door, and saw the distorted figure of Hermione.
"Hi Ron." She said meekly as he gestured her inside.
"What's up?" He asked, surprised to see her.
"Um, well, I have something I need to tell you." She said nervously. "You may want to sit down for this."
Ron cautiously sat down on the couch behind him.
"There's no easy way for me to tell you this…"
Ron gazed at her, as if he might miss something if he blinked.
She dove right in before she could stop herself, "…I think I might be pregnant."
Ron simply sat there. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.
A long pause, Hermione shifted uncomfortably.
He finally spoke. "Are you sure?"
Hermione nodded. "Well, I took a muggle pregnancy test and it said I was…" She trailed off.
Ron suddenly came to life, "Well that's the problem right there! You took a muggle test, and, and, who knows how reliable those things are…I mean, a lot of muggle things don't work properly…and, and, I'm sure there's a way to find out magically, that will work, and-" He was practically in hysterics.
"Ron. Ron. Calm down. Breathe."
Ron took a few deep breaths. After he seemed calm enough, Hermione spoke again. "I heard that there's a small privately owned clinic for wizards not far from here. We could go there and get a professional pregnancy test done."
Ron simply nodded. "Go get dressed and meet me downstairs and we'll catch a cab together," Hermione instructed. Ron nodded again and disappeared into his bedroom.
After about an hour of being lost, getting back on the right streets, and eventually giving up and walking because the cab driver had no idea where he was going, they found the clinic. Actually, they found a shabby rundown building with tiny words printed on the door: "Healer Mark Miller at the service of witches and wizards in distress and/or just don't want to travel all the way to St. Mungo's"
They walked through the moldy dilapidated door and saw that the inside was completely the opposite of the outside. It was a finely furnished and well-lit lobby with nurses, all dressed in nauseatingly spotless white smocks, bustling every which way.
Hermione walked up to the sprightly witch at the front desk and asked for an appointment. The witch gestured to a stack of blank pieces of paper on the counter, and a black quill immediately jumped upon the top-most paper and scribbled something. The witch ripped the paper out from under the quill and handed it to Hermione all with an enormous smile white enough to match her smock.
Hermione looked down at the small scrap of paper which read "78." She groaned and plopped down in the small chair next to Ron.
She looked over at Ron, who was doing surprisingly well up to this point, besides the fact that his hands were a little shaky as he turned the page of his magazine. He was trying not to think about the impending appointment they had with Mark Miller.
About an hour later Hermione heard the same sprightly witch call "Now serving number 78! Number 78!"
Hermione nudged Ron who jerked up immediately. She took a deep breath and walked with Ron into the patient room.
Mark Miller was leaning over the patient table, writing something on a pad of paper. He eventually tore it off and crumpled it up. He then sent the ball of paper zooming to the trash bin with his wand.
"Hi, I'm Mark, you can call me Mark." He chuckled to himself as he extended his hand to Hermione, who shook it and the same with Ron.
"And Tina tells me that you're here for a pregnancy test?" Mark checked his pad of paper, which was odd because it looked blank from where they were standing.
"Yes, we wanted to get a professional pregnancy test done," Hermione said politely.
"Well then, I'm your guy!" he chuckled again, and stopped abruptly after seeing no one else was laughing.
"If you could sit up here please." He patted the shiny table in the middle of the small room.
Once Hermione was sitting, Mark spoke again. "I'll be right back with the potion." He disapparated with a crack
Ron had been looking around the room. "You know," he said barely above a whisper, "I don't see any of his certifications to be a healer."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ron, don't be paranoid, I'm sure he has them and he just doesn't like to display them."
Mark apparated holding a small glass vile filled to the brim with a swirling purple liquid. "You'll need to drink all of this." Mark said pushing the vile into Hermione's open hand.
Hermione brought the vile up to her nose and took a big whiff, the liquid smelled oddly of lemons. She chugged the little glass vile and carefully set it back down on the shiny table.
"What now?" Ron asked curiously
"Now we wait for the signal." Mark replied writing away furiously on his pad of paper.
"Signal?" Hermione asked skeptically.
"Yes, signal."
Mark stared at their blank faces, and then set down his pad of paper.
"If one large purple dot appears on your stomach, it means you're not pregnant," Hermione glanced over at Ron, "but if a lot of purple dots appear on your stomach, well, then you are pregnant." He said happily.
Without thinking Hermione asked, "Will these dots go away?"
Mark laughed for what seemed like a long time and then abruptly answered "After a little while, yes."
A few minutes passed. Ron looked down at his watch nervously. Hermione, too afraid to look at her stomach any sooner than she had to, was staring off into space. What if it's positive? She thought, what will I do? It was hard enough to accept it when she did the muggle test, this test seemed way more official and absolute.
"Ok," Mark said energetically, "It's time."
Hermione took a deep breath and slowly lifted her shirt, revealing a single purple spot right in the center of her stomach, just above her bellybutton.
"And there you have it." Mark said after taking a look.
Ron exhaled deeply.
Hermione was dumbfounded. She had only been preparing herself for it to be positive. Even through her relief, she couldn't help but feel a little grief. This is stupid. She thought at her own feelings, How can I be upset over something I never even had?
"So it's negative?" Hermione asked trying to sound like she wasn't about to cry.
"No," Mark replied simply.
Hermione shot him a confused look.
"Look for yourself."
Hermione lifted her shirt once more and almost jumped when she saw several more spots surrounding the one in the center.
Mark, who now looked a little bored, was turned back onto his pad of paper, "Those others appeared just after that first one, but you covered up too fast to see them."
Hermione's heart was racing.
Ron cleared his throat loudly and asked, "So she's pregnant?"
"Yep," Mark responded with a quick tear of paper from his notepad.
Ron was at a loss for words. He and Hermione said nothing to each other until they arrived back at Ron's flat.
Ron closed the door behind them and sat down on the couch. Hermione followed him.
"We obviously need to talk." Hermione said
"Yeah." Ron replied determined not to meet her eyes.
"What are we going to do?" Hermione asked.
"I, I don't know." Ron replied honestly.
"I know I'm going to keep the baby," It was so weird to Hermione to say these words. She never dreamed that she, the valedictorian of her class at Hogwarts, she the ideal daughter, and she the most careful one of all her friends, would ever have to say these words. She always knew she would be happily married before she had a baby. Things just fall apart sometimes.
Ron nodded, not really knowing what to say.
"And you can be as involved as you want," She added
Ron nodded harder. "I'll be there for you, all the time, any time."
A tear ran down Hermione's cheek, she pulled Ron into a long hug.
They were interrupted by a knock on the door.
Ron leapt up to answer it. He opened the door to see Harry and Ginny standing in front of him. Hermione got up and walked over to them.
"What are you guys doing here?" Ron asked curiously.
Harry and Ginny looked at each other and smiled, they looked nervous. Harry's knuckles were white as he tightly held Ginny's hand.
"We have something very important to tell you…"
