A/N: This is the conversation that I had with myself as I posted the previous chapter:
"You're probably gonna lose readers, you know."
"Shhhh!"
"No, come on! We have to talk about this! You're probably going to lose readers!"
"Okay. Yes. I know. But why?!"
"You know why. A surprise pregnancy storyline?"
"Yeah, but-"
"No. Hey. Listen. You're throwing in one of the biggest cliches in heteronormative fanfiction. You realize that, right?"
"Yeah, but-"
"Imagine this: you're reading a story, you're enjoying it just fine, and then BOOM! A giant cliche!"
"Well, I'd personally probably keep reading."
"Okay, but like... how many times have you publicly described yourself as Harry/Ginny trash? How many times have you read things from start to finish that you didn't even like that much?"
"...Truuuuuu."
"So you've gotta accept that some people aren't gonna be into this and they may go away."
"But! But! I'm trying to make it not cliche! And honestly, it's kind of commentary on the sexual education system in schools which, frankly, is a big concern of mine."
"I know that. And you know that. (We both know it because we are both the same brain having a conversation with itself.) But they don't know that."
"They will after the read this ridiculously stupid author's note that's written as a conversation between me and myself."
"Yeah... Um, about that? Maybe you shouldn't-"
"Shhhhhhh!"
Um. Yeah. Okay. Surprise! Unplanned teenage pregnancy storyline! I know, I know, I know. If you are having doubts, that's fine! I totally understand! I would have doubts, too! But I really want to take something that is a bit of a cliche and make it less cliche, if that makes sense. I may fail! Who knows?! But I wanna give it a shot. So if you have doubts but you stick with me anyways, then that is really awesome and I definitely appreciate it a lot. I'm having fun writing this story (especially since it is one that has been sitting in my brain for many years) and I really hope that you are all enjoying reading it!
"No," Ginny shook her head frantically. "No, no, no, no no."
"Ginny, wait!"
Ginny was walking as fast as she could. She didn't know where she was going. But she had to go somewhere. She had to be moving.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
She ended up in the Gryffindor common room. It was empty. Everybody was at the Halloween feast. Hermione came in right behind her.
"Ginny!"
"I'm so stupid! How could I be so stupid?!"
She ran up the steps to the dormitories. She heard Hermione's quick footsteps behind her. Her heart was pounding. She brought her hands up to her face, continuing to frantically shake her head, pacing back and forth because she had run out of places to go.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no," she said.
"Why don't you sit down?" Hermione suggested.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no," Ginny continued as if she hadn't heard Hermione at all. Her breathing was growing quicker and quicker, and her lungs felt smaller and smaller, and she couldn't seem to get enough air. Her entire body was way too hot, and her heart was beating too fast, and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe at all, and she gasped for breath, eyes wide, shaking violently.
"Ginny, please sit down, Ginny, please!"
But she didn't. Her hands were in her own hair, gripping, pulling, and she was struggling for breath, and she could feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes. But then she felt Hermione's arms wrapping around her, holding her close to her.
"Ginny, you're having a panic attack. You're okay. You're okay. Breathe. You can breathe. Do you feel me breathing? Breathe with me."
She felt Hermione's steady breaths against her. She tried to mimic her, but she couldn't.
"Count to ten with me, okay?" Hermione asked. Ginny nodded, tears in her eyes. Hermione began to count and Ginny joined in, her voice breathy and strained. By the time they got to eight, though, her voice was a normal whisper, and her breathing was slower, and the pounding of her heart began to feel less intense.
"Let's sit, okay?"
Ginny nodded again, allowing Hermione to lead her to her bed, and she sat.
"Are you okay?"
Ginny nodded, but then shook her head.
"What am I going to do?"
"Are… are you?" Hermione asked nervously.
"I don't know," she admitted meekly.
"It's possible?"
"I don't know," Ginny said again, too panicked to be able to think properly.
"Okay," Hermione said calmly. "You and Harry have had sex?"
Ginny nodded.
"Did you use any sort of protection?"
Ginny slowly shook her head.
"When was your last period?"
Ginny tried to think. She tried to remember, but there were too many other things going through her brain to remember anything that hadn't happened in the past few minutes.
"Okay," Hermione said, seeming to notice Ginny's struggle. "Have you had a period since we've been at school?"
She hadn't. She would have remembered it. She would have gone to the hospital wing, like she did every month that she was at Hogwarts since her second year, to receive the potion that would relieve her cramps. But she hadn't done that at all since returning. They had been back for a month and a half now. She shook her head.
Hermione didn't say anything. She didn't need to.
"How could I not have noticed?" Ginny mumbled. "How could I be so stupid? How…?"
"You've had a lot going on," Hermione told her. But Ginny shook her head. She couldn't allow her to make excuses for her.
"I'm so stupid. I am so completely stupid," she said. "What was I thinking?! I mean, I wasn't thinking, that was the problem. I'm not completely idiotic. I know how a person ends up pregnant, and yet, I didn't… why didn't I? I didn't even think about it! How could I have not thought about it?! I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid! I don't even know the protective charms and stuff! I know they exist, but I don't know them! I should know them! Why don't I know them?!"
"I didn't know them either," Hermione said. "Even though it would make perfect sense for us to learn them in school because they're actually incredibly important for life, we don't learn them. The school puts the responsibility on parents, but my parents are muggles! When Ron and I… well, we were in Australia, and he didn't know anything. He said that your dad usually talked to your brothers before their seventh years, but with Ron… well… there was a lot going on. So he never learned, I never learned, I knew the muggle way, so… that's what we used. But as soon as we returned from Australia - oh!"
Hermione suddenly jumped up, rushing over towards the foot of her own bed, throwing open her trunk and rummaging through it for a moment. Unsurprisingly, she extracted a book, and then sat beside Ginny once again.
"I bought this when I got back from Australia," Hermione said. "I remembered seeing it in the library in the restricted section. Can you believe it? The restricted section!"
Ginny looked down at the book. It was small and brown with silver cursive lettering inscribed on the cover: A Witch's Guide to Her Self. Hermione flipped it open and began to look through the pages. Ginny simply watched her.
"There's a chapter on different types of contraception - charms that you can use right before sex, charms that you can use after sex, potions that will protect you for any length of time up to a year…."
Ginny wanted to point out to her that it might be a little bit too late for that information now and that it wasn't going to be very much of a help, but before she could, Hermione said "Aha!" and stopped flipping through the pages of the book.
"There are a few different ways to find out for sure if you're pregnant or not. This one seems the simplest," Hermione said, turning the book for Ginny to see. She looked down at it, and then back up at Hermione.
"I'm scared," she admitted.
"I know," Hermione told her. "I'm here."
Ginny looked at the page of the book again. It was simple. She just had to wave her wand, say an incantation, and then she would know. It seemed too simple. How could something so potentially life-changing be so simple?
"I can't do it."
"Yes you can," Hermione encouraged her, but Ginny shook her head. "Ginny…."
"You do it," she said.
"What?"
"You do it. You do it first."
"Why?" Hermione asked, eyebrows furrowed. "I know I'm not pregnant."
"You might be!"
"No, I'm definitely not."
"Okay, just… Can you please do it first? I just want to know what to expect. Please, Hermione?" Ginny begged.
"Okay, fine!" Hermione gave in, and pulled her wand from her robe. "Concepi!"
From the tip of her wand burst a puff of white smoke, which unfurled in the air in front of them, spelling out the words "YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT."
They both watched as the smoke faded away. It was that simple. An incantation, a puff of smoke, and then she would know. She could feel her heart beating much too fast as she closed her hand around her wand. She hesitated. She sat there, unmoving, and Hermione didn't rush her. With her free hand, she reached for Hermione, and Hermione grabbed hold, and Ginny took several deep breaths, raising her wand.
"Concepi," she said. It came out as barely a whisper, but it was enough. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the smoke poured from her wand and took shape.
YOU ARE PREGNANT.
She stared at it. Even after the smoke vanished, she still stared. She could still see it, even though it was gone. Her mind was blank except for three smokey words repeating themselves over and over and over again. She couldn't even begin to process it. She just stared.
"Ginny?" Hermione said after an amount of time that could have been anywhere from a few seconds to several days. Ginny felt her hand, still clutching onto Hermione's.
"Shit," is what she finally said.
"Are you okay?"
"No," she answered honestly, and then turned to look at Hermione. "What do I do?"
"You have options," Hermione told her.
"I do?" she asked, and Hermione nodded.
"There's a potion," she said. "You can take it and it will… it will stop it."
"Stop it?" Ginny repeated, and Hermione nodded.
"It stops the pregnancy."
"How does it… I mean… What… what happens to the…," she trailed off, gesturing towards her stomach, unable to bring herself to say the word baby.
"Well, it stops developing," Hermione explained.
"It dies?"
"I wouldn't say that it dies. It just stops developing any further."
"What's the difference?" Ginny asked with a frown.
"Well, it's not really viable, you know? It can't survive outside of your body. Depending on how far along you are, it really isn't even much of anything at all yet. Muggles have a way of doing this, too. It's much more complicated, of course, and a lot of people don't agree with it, but it's completely legal and very common."
Ginny was silent. She was trying to comprehend what Hermione was saying, but everything seemed to be fuzzy. Her mind was working slower than usual. Hermione seemed to notice Ginny's confusion and she continued to speak.
"It's like… let's say that you've planted a seed, but you stop watering it before it sprouts. Has the plant died?"
"No…," Ginny shook her head slowly.
"You're just stopping it from becoming a plant. Because plants are a lot of responsibility. Once you have that plant in your life, there's no going back."
"You think I should do it, don't you?" Ginny asked her.
"I can't make that decision for you," Hermione said.
"I don't want you to decide for me," she replied. "I just want to know what you think I should do."
"I think that no matter what choice you make, you're always going to wonder what life would be like if you had chosen differently," she told her. "And I think that you are already dealing with a lot. And any plans that you may have had for your future will be much, much harder if you have a baby to take care of. I will support you no matter what decision you make, but I think… Yeah. I think that you should do it."
Hermione had said the word baby. Ginny wished that they could go back to the plant metaphor because hearing the word baby made it too real. Baby. An actual human life was developing inside of her. It would grow, and she would grow, and then there would be a baby. A tiny person, and she would be their mother. She would be a mother.
"I'm not ready to be a mother," fell from her mouth in a panicked whisper. She shook her head. "I can't be a mother."
"It's okay," Hermione attempted to comfort her.
"I would be a terrible mother! I can't even do a proper cleaning spell! I don't know to cook or knit or any of those things that my mum can do. I can't be a mum! I would have to give up quidditch! I won't be able to play if I'm pregnant, and then no professional team will take a seventeen year old mother who didn't even play on her school team! And school! What would I do?! Would I drop out? My mother would be thrilled; less than half of her children would have actually finished school. But I couldn't stay, could I? Everybody would know! And exams! By the time we take N.E.W.T.S, I would be like, extremely pregnant. Because I'm pregnant. Oh, shit, I'm pregnant. Oh no, oh no, oh no, I can't be pregnant, I don't want to be pregnant. Hermione, I don't want to be pregnant!" she cried, clutching onto Hermione's hands, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
"Okay. It's okay, it's okay," Hermione assured her. "You can take the potion if you're sure that's what you want to do."
"I'm sure," she said. "I can't have a baby."
"Okay."
"I can't be pregnant at school. Can you even imagine? And I would have it before we finished. I would have to drop out. It's not like there's a Hogwarts babysitting service!"
She imagined herself walking through the corridors with a giant belly, giving birth in the hospital wing, handing an infant over to a group of house elves while she took her exams. It was so ridiculous, it was almost enough to make her laugh. It was implausible on all accounts. If she remained pregnant, she was sure that she would have no choice but to leave school. She was so close to finishing school. She wanted to finish school and play quidditch. She wouldn't be able to do that with a baby.
But the image in her mind suddenly became bright and clear and she saw herself holding an infant with a mess of dark hair atop its head. She pictured herself with Harry and their baby, and they were happy. She buried her face in her hands.
"Fuck," she grumbled, her words muffled by her hands. "I don't know what to do."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, and Ginny looked up at her again.
"I don't know what to do," she repeated. "I don't know what I want to do."
"You don't have to make this decision right now," she said. "You can think it over."
"Hypothetically, if I had it, do you think Harry would… I mean… How do you think Harry would feel?"
"He would be there for you," Hermione said without hesitation. "He wouldn't even think twice about it. He would be there for you and the baby, and not just out of obligation, either."
"You sound so sure."
"I am sure."
"Ron tells you that he loves you," Ginny said, and Hermione looked confused.
"Um. Yeah. He does."
"Harry's never… I mean, I've never…. We don't say that to each other."
"You're not doubting that Harry loves you, are you?"
"We've never told each other. I don't know."
"Growing up, how often was Ron told that he was loved?" Hermione asked.
"A lot," Ginny answered.
"And how often do you think Harry heard that he was loved?"
"...Oh."
"Just because he doesn't say it doesn't mean that he doesn't feel it. That boy loves you, Ginny. He may not know how to say it, though. But he loves you."
"When did you and Ron first say that you loved each other?" Ginny asked, and she wasn't sure why she was suddenly so curious about her friend's relationship with her brother, but she wanted to know.
"We were in Australia," Hermione said. "We had just found my parents two days before and successfully brought back their memories. I thought that they were going to be angry with me, but they weren't. After I explained to them why I did it, they were just happy that I was okay. I didn't tell them that Ron and I were dating, but I could tell that my mum knew. And I… I was just really, really happy. And that terrified me. I started crying, that night, right before we were about to go to sleep. I started crying and I couldn't stop, and Ron thought something was wrong, and I tried to explain to him that I was scared, because so many awful things had happened, and there I was, suddenly so happy, and so much to lose, and… eventually, he calmed me down. And he told me that I didn't have to worry about losing him any time soon, because he loved me and he wasn't going anywhere."
Ginny knew that it didn't make any sense to compare her relationship with Harry to Hermione's relationship with Ron, and yet, she was. For a moment, she envied Hermione. She didn't want to. She hated herself for it. But she envied her.
They heard the soft murmur of voices. People were returning to the common room after the Halloween feast. Had they really been up there that long already? They both turned to look towards the door of the dormitory, and then back to each other.
"We can find somewhere else private to keep talking," Hermione suggested, but Ginny shook her head.
"It's okay," she said. "We probably both have homework that we need to do. We should do homework."
"Ginny…."
"What? I can't put everything else on hold just to figure this out."
"I know, but... ," Hermione began, but she trailed off, and Ginny stood up. She wanted to do something, anything to take her mind off of the decision that she didn't know how to make.
But it was pointless. As she sat down at a table in the common room with Hermione, she knew that it was pointless. She couldn't focus. She couldn't take her mind off of it. She stared at a book, but the words on the page made no sense to her. She read and re-read, but she couldn't comprehend a single sentence.
Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.
It was all she could think about. Hermione kept looking at her. Ginny could tell that she wanted to say something, and a few times, she even opened her mouth, but then shut it and said nothing. Finally, Ginny gave up.
"I'm going to bed," she said, shutting her book.
But that seemed pointless too.
She couldn't sleep. She lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, and she felt sick. Not in the way that she had been feeling sick, with nausea and the need to vomit. Instead, it was a feeling of knots in her stomach, an aching pressure in her chest, the steady, too-heavy pounding of her heart that reverberated throughout her entire body. She couldn't move. She was frozen in one spot, staring straight above her, trying to untangle the thousands of thoughts running through her mind. Every single thought had its own voice, shouting, trying to be heard over the others, and it was just noise. Her mind was full of noise.
She listened as other girls in her dormitory went to bed, and she heard the sound of Hermione getting into the four-poster right beside her own. She didn't know how long she had been lying there, but once everybody else seemed to be asleep, she knew that she had been there for a long time.
She placed a hand on her belly.
It felt the same as it always had. She knew that it was far too early for it to be any different, and yet, she had expected it to be.
Her belly had never been entirely flat. She had always had a softer midsection. She was active, but her mother was a good cook, and she liked to eat. It never bothered her. She never had a reason for it to bother her. She always used to see articles in Witch Weekly about getting rid of soft bellies, and after she started going to Hogwarts, she would hear other girls complaining about their weight, but Ginny never felt any particular way about it. She had never been made to feel badly about it. Growing up, she never heard any mention of weight in her family. It was simply unimportant.
She thought of her mother's belly. Soft and stretched, with light stripes symbolizing the seven children that she had carried within her.
She dug her fingertips into her skin.
Pregnant.
There was life forming inside of her. It seemed miraculous. She knew that it wasn't. She never understood when others considered birth a miracle when it happened all the time in every species. She knew that it wasn't a miracle, and yet it seemed miraculous. In the midst of so much grief, after so much death and destruction, there was life forming inside of her.
There was life forming inside of her and she had created it with Harry.
Pregnant.
If she decided to end the pregnancy, would she tell Harry about it? It would be so easy not to, and they could just continue on in their relationship without having to ever talk about it. But she would know. She would always know, and she knew that it would always feel like she was hiding a secret. If he knew, how would he feel? If he knew that he had helped to create a life forming inside of her and she decided to stop it, would he be upset? Or would he be relieved?
She didn't even know if he wanted children. They had never discussed it. She didn't even know if she really wanted children. She had thought about it, of course, but it always seemed so far off that she never put it in her plans. She just wanted to finish school and play quidditch. That was all she had planned. None of this was any part of it.
She pressed her hand hard against her belly. It would be so easy to be in denial, if only she hadn't seen those smoky words in front of her. She wanted to go back to when she didn't know. She wanted to ignore it all, to wait until everything just went away on its own, but she knew that was impossible. It wouldn't go away on its own. She had to deal with it. She had to make a decision and then live with that decision.
"Hermione?" she whispered just loud enough to be heard in the bed nearest to her.
"Yeah?"
"You're awake?" she asked, even though she obviously was.
"Yes."
Ginny sat up in her bed, turning to sit on the edge, facing Hermione. Hermione propped herself up on her elbow, looking at Ginny.
"I can't sleep," Ginny said.
"Neither can I."
"Can I… Um. Could I lay with you?" Ginny asked sheepishly. She didn't want to be alone.
"Yes. Of course," Hermione answered. Ginny slid out of her bed, moving as noiselessly as possible to Hermione's.
The bed was small, but it was enough for the two girls. Ginny lay down next to Hermione, and Hermione pulled the blankets over the both of them.
"Have you slept at all since you've been up here?" Hermione asked in barely a whisper.
"No," Ginny shook her head. "I can't shut my brain up."
"I can only imagine."
"I don't want this to be happening."
"I know you don't."
They fell silent. Hermione lay on her back as Ginny curled herself up beside her, reaching a hand out to clutch onto her arm. She felt comforted by having Hermione next to her. Her skin was warm beneath her fingertips. She felt slightly more at ease. She wasn't alone.
"Harry would make a good father," Ginny said softly, breaking the silence.
"He would," Hermione agreed.
"I don't think I would make a very good mother, though."
"Why do you say that?"
"I don't know," she said. "I just don't think that I would."
"I think that you would be fine, if that's what you decided to do."
"I don't know what I want to do."
"It might be easier once the shock wears off," she told her.
"Maybe."
"Everything is going to be okay, Ginny," Hermione said. Ginny wanted to believe her. But she wasn't sure that she did.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Yes."
"Earlier, when I was panicking, how did you know what to do to make me stop?"
"Ron has panic attacks sometimes too," she said.
"He does?"
"Usually at night. Usually out of nowhere. At first I didn't know what to do, but I sort of figured out what worked for him. Luckily, it worked for you, too."
"I didn't know that."
"No, he doesn't really like to talk about it."
"He's very lucky to have you, you know," Ginny said, and Hermione let out a soft breathy laugh. "No, really. I've no idea what took him so long."
"Well… he can be rather oblivious sometimes, can't he?" Hermione said, but even in her nearly-inaudible whisper, Ginny could hear the fondness in her voice.
Ginny closed her eyes. She still held onto Hermione's arm. It was true, what she said. She really didn't have any idea what took her brother so long to finally notice Hermione. Ginny had always found Hermione beautiful, even when they were young. She had always seen Hermione as somebody to look up to, somebody who was slightly older, clever, friends with her brother and with Harry. The more time she spent with Hermione, the more she began to see her as the sister that she never had. She was like her sister and she thought that she was absolutely beautiful, with her soft curves and her dark skin and the dark hair that bounced when she walked. She was beautiful, and Ron had finally noticed. She hoped that one day Hermione would be her sister.
They remained silent and eventually, Ginny heard the steady breathing that told her that Hermione had fallen asleep. She was still nowhere close to sleep.
She wanted to cry, but she didn't. She wanted to scream, but she didn't. She wanted everything to stop. She wanted to go back to summer, back to August when everything was simpler. But it was going into November and she was pregnant and it seemed like nothing would ever be simple again.
Pregnant.
No matter how many times she said the word over in her mind, it sounded foreign.
Pregnant.
She wanted to believe Hermione when she told her that everything was going to be okay. She wanted to believe her.
"Everything's going to be okay," she whispered out loud to herself. It sounded stupid coming from her own mouth. It sounded forced and fake. Because it was.
But Hermione had to be right. Hermione was always right.
Eventually, once her body and mind were both too exhausted to do anything else, Ginny finally fell asleep. As she fell asleep, she kept one hand on Hermione, and the other hand atop her stomach.
Pregnant.