Well, finals have finally arrived at my university. So, like any good student, I'm updating my fanfiction. Really, my mother would be so proud.
No worries, folks, this story will get back to the cannon characters. I just have to make sure things are nice and messy for everyone. The secret to good writing? Be as sadistic as your good senses will allow. And then be a little more sadistic. It works. Not even kidding.
And as I am updating instead of studying, like a moron, I do have one request...INSPIRE ME. Seriously, folks. I'm working on chapter nine and have all these plans for the long term, but the only problem is actually getting there.
And, as always, a bow, a hug, and a friendly smack on the bum (wink, wink) to all the reviewers.
I hear boxes…Wait, what?
"Gin, c'mon, I said I need help with the boxes." Nikki chirped, sticking her head into the bedroom. "And Teddy's got to get to school in like, ten minutes. I dressed him, assured him you didn't do anything inappropriate with the nice guy and the cool dog, and he's currently eating breakfast."
"You're going to have to stay here and live with me so I don't have to actually raise the bump once it stops being a bump and starts being a baby." Ginny mumbled into her pillow.
"I only half way understood that, but get up, even if you said something horrible." When she didn't get the response she was looking for, Nikki just ripped the covers right off Ginny, much to the redheads dismay.
"Up! I'm getting up!" Ginny croaked, rethinking the whole 'Let's have our American friend stay with us' idea she had gone with.
"Good! Brush your hair, teeth, and put on pants, Teddy needs to get to school and I don't know where it is."
I'm not wearing pants, am I? Nikki saw my knickers…worse things have happened.
"It's about time!" Teddy trumpeted as Ginny walked into the kitchen. "I'm gonna be late if we don't go RIGHT NOW!"
"Oh, well, it's too bad that I have to spend the next four minutes doing something that you will hate and never give you an explanation for." Ginny quipped back.
"WHY?!" Teddy demanded, obviously upset.
"She's just joking, Teddy. She's an evil, evil person but she's ours, so grab your back pack and let's go." Nikki instructed, giving Ginny a 'shame on you' look.
The majority of the walk Teddy and Nikki spent arguing over what to do for dinner, while Ginny seemed to hate every single idea.
"You being pregnant is a huge inconveny-inconveince-not easy on me!" Teddy snapped.
"Well, it's not much easier on me!" Ginny responded.
"Gin, you have been a pain in the butt all morning, ever since I saw your underpants. What is the deal?" Nikki demanded.
Ginny stopped walking, and looked at the two of them, near tears.
"It's--"
"Yeees?"
"It's--"
"C'mon…"
"It's my pants!"
"Okay, you've lost us." Nikki stated.
"They're tight! Really tight. I had to use a bit of you know what to stretch them out and then use a bit more of you know what just to get into them, and they're still tight." Ginny answered, her vision blurring from tears.
"Ginny, it's the baby." Teddy breathed out, "It's growing." Without warning, Teddy put his face right up to Ginny's navel and started yelling, "HELLO?! CAN YOU HEAR ME? I'M TEDDY, I'M YOUR GODBROTHER. DON'T WORRY, YOUR MUM MIGHT BE CRAZY, BUT SHE'S FUN. SHE'S GOT POPSICLES."
"Teddy, this is very sweet, but you're scaring everyone around us." Ginny hissed, trying to pry the young boy off her abdomen, much to Nikki's amusement.
Once they had all reached the school, and weren't even late despite Teddy being positive that he'd be "so so so late and get in so so so much trouble," Ginny headed in with Nikki so as to meet the muggle teachers and make it not a problem for at least one of them to pick Teddy up later that day.
"Oh! Teddy's grandmum mentioned that a family friend would be picking him today and tomorrow, sent a note along yesterday, an email. She didn't mention that the family friends were…together." the teacher smiled stiffly after meeting the girls.
"What?" Ginny asked, her jaw dropping.
"Right, well, you know Teddy's grandmom, she doesn't always mention the exciting details!" Nikki laughed, linking her arm with Ginny's.
"Uh--"
"Well, we certainly are supportive of that thing around here!" the teacher said through her teeth, a smile plastered on her face so tightly that it seemed very likely that she would be unable to remove it for a at least a few days.
"Do you know what you just did?" Ginny asked as she and Nikki made their way back to Ginny's flat.
"What did I just did?" Nikki asked, keeping her arm still linked with her friends.
"You just turned me into a pregnant lesbian."
"We're so controversial!"
The pair laughed all the way back, enjoying the time of normalcy. Being the type of girls they were, and with the life they led, it of course didn't last long at all and once they were back at the stoop, the laughter stopped rather abruptly.
"What are you doing here?" Ginny demanded, but then catching herself, followed with "I mean, hi."
"Hi," Chris grinned back at her. "I didn't have to com to work till late so I thought I'd stop by and bring breakfast. I realize I'm supposed to wait three days, but I didn't know what to do with these fourteen bagels I had." he continued, holing up a rather large back.
"Did you have those bagels just lying about?" Ginny questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"I might have bought them before coming over, and they might be a variety pack, and I might also have orange juice, earl grey tea, black coffee, and chamomile tea."
"Ooh! I call chamomile!" Nikki broke in, taking a cup from Chris, "Let's go up, I'm Nikki by the way, Ginny's best friend who she has undoubtedly told you all about and therefore the look of surprise you're giving me is just to be funny, even though it's really not."
The trio trooped up the stairs, with Ginny warning him the entire time.
"Don't mind the boxes, and I do have a cat, who might try and kill you, but really, he doesn't mean it. He's been hiding from Teddy, so it's quite likely that he's got quite bit of pent up rage."
By the time that three of them had settled in, as soon as the conversation got to a point of natural flow, the point where Ginny could finally relax and enjoy her bagel, even though it was raisin, raisins sounded pretty good at the moment, thanks pregnancy, there was a tapping at the window.
"Oh, your owl is here." Nikki commented, "And he's brought…friends."
"Oh, Merlin." Ginny breathed out, "Work, it's back, and it's vengeful."
At her window was not only her one owl, who was big enough to carry the average delivery to Ginny himself, surrounded by approximately fourteen average size owls.
"This is not good." Ginny stated as her flat flooded with wings.
"I don't think I've ever seen so many agitated owls at once." Chris breathed out, looking slightly overwhelmed.
"I have, but that was the time my brother brought fire crackers to a petting zoo. Feathers everywhere." Nikki told with a slight shudder.
It took the three of them, and Julio, the deranged little cat who tried to eat one of them, thirty minutes to calm down all the owls, and to get all the packages and parchments away from them.
"Now, to actually send these things that they want back. Who wants to help sort through pretty, pretty pictures of shoes?" Ginny asked, waving away an owl that kept trying to rest on her shoulder.
Instantly, Nikki's hand shot in the air, much to Chris' relief.
"Right, anything that says done, put it on an owl, when they're ready, they'll go." Ginny ordered. "Chris, do me a favor and get Julio, he's trying to drink your coffee, and that would be very bad." At the kitchen table there was Julio, on the table, trying to remove the lid from Chris' black coffee.
"Oh, no, you don't little kitty, I need that more than you ever will." Chris informed the cat, scooping him into his arms, avoiding claws.
As if there wasn't enough to be dealing with at that moment in time, a rather needy sounding rapping was at the door.
"Can you get that?" Ginny called from her office where she was trying to find the picture of the wedge, which she knew was somewhere in a file, but the question was which drawer.
"Got it," Chris answered, not bothering to put the cat down.
"Who are you?" a very disheveled Neville asked, holding a screaming baby in his arms with a bulging diaper bag on his back.
"I'm Chris. Who're you?" the older man yelled over the child's screams.
"What on earth?" Ginny asked as she stepped out of her office, "Neville, what's going on? Why aren't you in class? What's wrong?"
"Hannah's sick, Gran's sick, half the students are sick, Ally's not sick, but she is so…angry!" Neville choked out, he had been up all night, his wife throwing up and his baby screaming for quiet. "I am begging you, please, take her for the day, maybe through tonight, I don't know, just long enough for the potion to finish so everyone can be well again, but I can't make the potion with all the screaming."
"Why don't you get the potions master at Hogwarts to make it?" Ginny questioned, taking the baby out of her father's tired arms.
"He's making too many potions as it is, there was a case of a prank getting out of hand, and, well, it was messy and the mess came from second years."
"Ew. Stop talking."
"Right, thanks so much for this, I've got to get back to my wife, thanks again for this, I'll floo if I need you, really, you're the best, and so's your…friend." Neville rushed out, eying Chris once again.
"Why are people always giving me children?" Ginny asked, rocking the still screaming baby. "First Harry, then Andromeda, now Neville."
"Who's Harry?" Chris asked, slightly perplexed as to what had just happened and why he was holding a diaper bag.
It took Ginny fifteen minutes to calm Ally down, but by the time she was done, Nikki had managed to send off all the papers. Everything calmed down, briefly, which brought on another wave of nausea to Ginny.
"I'm going to throw up, you two watch the baby." Ginny instructed.
While she was in there, yet another knock came to the door.
"Got it!" Nikki chirped, springing out of her chair with the vivacity that only she possessed.
"If it's another baby, tell them we're full. I'm rather fond of this one." Chris remarked, bouncing a now happily gurgling Ally Longbottom on his knee.
"Can I help you?" a perplexed Nikki asked four redheads, a bushy haired brunette and dark haired young man greeted her with a looks ranging from confusion to outrage.
"Do you live here?" the older, red haired woman asked, she was actually Molly Weasley, but Nikki had no way of being sure of this.
"Yes?" Nikki responded, unsure of what else to say.
"Who is it, Nik?" Chris asked, bringing a gurgling Ally with him.
"Oh, no, she's moved!" Ron wailed, obviously upset. "She's done it again! She always does this!"
"She's run away with my baby." Harry breathed out, looking physically ill.
"We don't know that." Molly insisted.
"I don't know, Mrs. Weasley. There's a couple here with a baby of their own, boxes everywhere, and no Ginny to be seen." Hermione pointed out, rather disappointed herself, but still logical.
"But Ginny's stuff is still here!" George pointed out, hope springing eternal in his prankster heart.
"Sometimes people move and leave their things behind. Like the first time Ginny left…" Hermione mumbled that last part, feeling the eyes of her party burning into her. "Well, it's true!"
"We're so sorry to have bothered you," Mr. Weasley sighed, "have a lovely day." his words were kind, but his tone was quite upset.
With that, the group all trooped away, looking very sullen indeed.
"She left with my baby!" Nikki and Chris could hear Harry repeating as they left, the two of them still standing in the doorway, looking almost as confused as they felt.
"Who was that?" Ginny asked, after returning from her rather unpleasant visit to the bathroom.
"It looked like--"
"Salesmen." Chris cut Nikki off, smiling serenely. "Trying to sell encyclopedias or some rubbish like that."
"Oh, all right. Odd." Ginny shrugged.
"What was that? They were not sales people!" Nikki hissed as soon as Ginny was out of earshot.
"It's pretty obvious who they were," Chris hissed back, switching Ally from one hip to the next, "it's also pretty obvious that she does not want to see any of them, I'm doing her a favor!"
"I don't know…"
"You care about her, right?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then why bother her with those people when she's trying to get her life in order right now? Let her deal with one thing at a time."
"Still…"
"I'll tell her when it's time."
"Promise?" Nikki asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.
"Promise." Chris stated.
Nikki almost believed him, but she figured if Ginny trusted him…