Disclaimer; Nothing in this fic belongs to me, They belong to J.K Rowling. Only Jessica belongs to me, partly.
You who have read Breaking Dawn, Read this chapter and think of the irony...
Chapter Eight; Unexpected
The two people talking were the minister and Snape, Jessica tried to hear what they were saying but nothing seemed to register in her mind. She rolled her head so that she was staring at the ceiling; she tried to remember why she was there, and then it suddenly hit her, how could she have forgotten?
She sat up in the bed and looked around, the door of the hospital wing was half-open and it was from out there the talking was coming.
Her head was hurting; she brought her hand up to her head and felt a bandage on the hair line over her forehead.
"Oh you're awake." The nurse came out from the backroom, carrying a rather large piece of chocolate with her.
Jessica didn't answer her; she looked around and saw Hermione on another bed, and Ron lying unconscious on another.
"Is Ron going to be alright?" She asked.
"He'll be fine." The nurse answered and on the bedside table between Harry and Jessica's bed, she started to hack the chocolate pieces to smaller ones. "But the three of you has to stay here... Potter! What do you think that you are doing?"
Jessica, who was so used that that phrase was used to her, flinched. "I'm not doing anything." She said, not yet anyway, she had just been thinking about leaving the hospital wing to go and do something, try and find out what had happened to Sirius.
But Jessica turned her eyes around to Harry, who was getting off his bed.
"I need to see the headmaster." He said urgently.
"Potter," Madam Pomfrey said soothingly, "it's all right. They've got Black. He's locked away upstairs. The Dementors will be performing the kiss any moment now..."
During the next ten minutes a lot of things happened. Jessica with Harry and Hermione all tried to convince the minister that Sirius was innocent; Jessica did try her best, but the minister was so sure of that Harry and Hermione was confounded, to her he refused to even look at, as if he suspected her to be the bad one as well. But Jessica's body started to tremble and she had to sit down, her head also hurt too much, causing Jessica to get the feeling that the room was spinning.
But soon Dumbledore entered the room, making the nurse almost go insane; she kept insisting that Jessica, Harry and Hermione needed to rest and be unbothered.
But Dumbledore, in his normally unbothered and calm behaviour, told the minister, Snape and Madame Pomfrey that he needed to speak to the teenagers, alone.
After a lot of insisting from Dumbledore's side they were finally alone.
Dumbledore told them that he believed the story that Sirius had told him and also believed the innocence of him. But he also told them that there was nothing they could do without Pettigrew. They needed more time.
Suddenly Hermione's face shone up and she revealed the time turner that Professor McGonagall had given her at the beginning of the term. Dumbledore gave them some cryptic messages and then left them.
Jessica told them to leave without her, she would only be in the way, besides, her head was killing her and she started to feel nauseated.
"Good luck." Jessica told them as they got around the chain and disappeared. But as soon as they had disappeared they came in from the door outside the hospital wing. Jessica felt a bit confused at first, but just put her head back on her pillow.
As Harry and Hermione hurried back to their beds Harry mouthed something to Jessica. ("He's free"), which made Jessica feel better and more relaxed, but there was still a small part of her who had trouble believing what Harry said.
"Did I hear the headmaster leaving? Am I allowed to look after my patients now?"
She was in a very bad mood. Madam Pomfrey stood over them, making sure they ate it. But Harry could hardly swallow. He and Hermione were waiting, listening, their nerves jangling… And then, as they both took a fourth piece of chocolate from Madam Pomfrey, they heard a distant roar of fury echoing from somewhere above them…
"What was that?" Madam Pomfrey said in alarm.
Now they could hear angry voices, growing louder and louder. Madam Pomfrey was staring at the door.
"Really — they'll wake everybody up! What do they think they're doing?"
Jessica was trying to hear what the voices were saying. They were drawing nearer...
"He must have Disapparated, Severus. We should have left somebody in the room with him. When this gets out..."
"HE DIDN'T DISAPPARATE!" Snape roared, now very close at hand. "YOU CAN'T APPARATE OR DISAPPARATE INSIDE THIS CASTLE! THIS — HAS — SOMETHING — TO — DO — WITH — POTTER!"
"Severus... be reasonable... They have been locked up —"
BAM!
The door of the hospital wing burst open.
Fudge, Snape, and Dumbledore came striding into the ward. Dumbledore alone looked calm. Indeed, he looked as though he was quite enjoying himself. Fudge appeared angry. But Snape was beside himself.
"OUT WITH IT, POTTER!" he bellowed while walking straight up Jessica's bed, pointing angry at her, who just looked up at him, having no idea what he was talking about. "WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"Professor Snape!" shrieked Madam Pomfrey. "Control yourself!"
"See here, Snape, be reasonable," Fudge said. "This door's been locked, we just saw..."
"SHE HELPED HIM ESCAPE, I KNOW IT!" Snape howled, still pointing at Jessica. His face was twisted; spit was flying from his mouth.
"Calm down, man!" Fudge barked. "You're talking nonsense!"
"YOU DON'T KNOW POTTER!" Snape shrieked. "SHE DID IT; I KNOW SHE DID IT..."
"That will do, Severus," Dumbledore said quietly. "Think about what you are saying. This door has been locked since I left the ward ten minutes ago. Madam Pomfrey, have these students left their beds?"
"Of course not!" Madam Pomfrey said, bristling. "I would have heard them!"
"Well, there you have it, Severus," Dumbledore said calmly. "Unless you are suggesting that Jessica, Harry and Hermione are able to be in two places at once, I'm afraid I don't see any point in troubling them further."
Snape stood there, seething, staring from Fudge, who looked thoroughly shocked at his behaviour, to Dumbledore, whose eyes were twinkling behind his glasses. Snape whirled about, robes swishing behind him, and stormed out of the ward.
"Fellow seems quite unbalanced," Fudge said, staring after him. "I'd watch out for him if I were you, Dumbledore."
"Oh, he's not unbalanced," Dumbledore said quietly. "He's just suffered a severe disappointment."
All of a sudden a rather unexpected giggle left her; she hadn't felt something like this hit her over the last month, she suddenly felt so positive. She found that she had to explain her weird behaviour since they were all looking at her.
"No, he's certainly not unbalanced; he's just acting like normal." She explained, giggling again. She had actually never seen Snape act like this before, it was rather refreshing to see it.
She still found that the minister was looking at her with a strange look, it gave Jessica the impression that he had actually thought for a second that Jessica did have something to do with the escape of Sirius Black.
After the headmaster and the minister left the hospital wing, they continued to eat more chocolate and Madame Pomfrey returned to her office, telling them that they need rest.
Jessica collapsed back to her bed, feeling quite exhausted. She closed her eyes and for the first time since she woke up from her coma, fell into a long and natural sleep.
XXX
It was almost noon when Jessica woke up the next day, Harry and Hermione was already awake, so was Ron. They were sitting with him, talking to him.
Not wanting to linger up here in the hospital wing, Jessica sat up in bed. Her head was feeling fine but her stomach growled, she felt so hungry, but not only hungry, she felt nauseated. Harry and the rest of them didn't seem to have noticed that she was awake, but when Jessica threw up in the closest garbage bin, they were all looking into her direction.
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah..." Jessica answered. "I'm just hungry."
Soon the nurse came out of her office and told them that they might leave, everyone but Jessica. Madame Pomfrey told Jessica to sit down and that she had some news about the examination she made yesterday morning, which seemed like have been forever ago.
Harry at first didn't want to leave without Jessica, but she told them to go down to the Great hall for lunch and she would meet up with them later there. Harry seemed to be fine with that and the three of them left the hospital wing.
"Miss Potter," Madame Pomfrey told her once they were all alone. She had a cryptic expression over her face, which made Jessica a bit worried. What could be so bad? "While analyzing your blood this morning I found something rather unexpected..."
"Is it bad?" Jessica asked, starting to get really worried.
Madame Pomfrey didn't quite know how to answer that, so she let it be. "It was quite a shock and I don't really know how to explain it, but... the truth is..."
But Jessica didn't want to wait, she had quite a good idea what the nurse meant.
"I'm dying aren't I?" Jessica asked the question she didn't even want to get an answer for.
XXX
Getting the news was something that set Jessica into a rather shocked mood, she didn't quite know how she managed to get down to the Great Hall where she knew that Harry, Ron and Hermione was waiting for her, she saw them sitting there, the great hall was quite deserted, it turned out that it was the last Hogsmeade trip before the end of the semester.
She sat down next to them, when Harry asked how she was; she could only manage to nod. She couldn't eat, she didn't know if she could manage to keep it down. She was only staring down at the table as Harry, Ron and Hermione continued to talk about yesterday. Jessica wanted to know what Harry and Hermione did when they went back in time, but she couldn't manage to ask that question.
The one thing that alerted Jessica and pulled her out of her stare was when Harry said that they didn't make any difference.
"Didn't make any difference?" Jessica asked shocked, staring at Harry in disbelief. "Harry, we made all the difference in the world. Believe me when I say that Sirius wouldn't care if the whole world knew that truth as long as you did, that's what matters to him, that the people he loved know the truth."
Harry looked back at her, "But Pettigrew got away."
"We'll deal with him; he's not that big of a threat, what can he do?" Jessica answered. "And think also of that Dumbledore now also knows the truth, give it a year or two, Dumbledore can provide Sirius with a secure place for him to stay, give it even longer time and the ministry will change their priority to other things instead of Sirius. And when we do find Pettigrew, he'll be free." Jessica silenced herself; she looked up at the almost empty teachers table, and saw that Remus was missing. She suddenly realized that she needed to talk to him, she needed to tell him the truth about her condition, and he deserved to know.
"I..." Jessica stood up. "I have to do something, it will take a while, so don't wait for me."
Before they had a chance to answer Jessica had already left the table. It didn't take her long to find his office; he didn't seem surprised to see her.
"Hi Jessica," He said casually to her, looking rather horrible, thinking about what happened tonight, his face pale and he looked tired.
"Hi," She answered. She looked around in the office. "You are leaving already, there's still a few days left of school."
"I'm leaving now because I'm not coming back next year." Remus answered, putting down a few more books in the box.
"Why?" Jessica asked. "You love this job."
Remus smiled, "Snape accidentally told his students this morning about my condition, soon will the letters start to arrive, and parents don't want me to teach their children."
"You want me to hit him; I can hit him if you want me to." Jessica said feeling a sudden anger toward the git.
"No," Remus shook his head. "It's alright, I'll learn to live with it, the biggest problem now is to find another job."
"You can always stay with me," Jessica offered before being able to stop herself. "And Harry later this summer, there is enough room for you as well."
Remus looked up at her. "Thanks, but..." I have a few things to take care of at first, maybe later." He looked really grateful for the offer. "But this is not the reason that you came to see me is it?" He had always been so good at reading her.
"No, it's not." Jessica confessed quietly and closed the door behind her. "I..." She started, but not sure how to continue. "I have just been up in the hospital wing talking to Madame Pomfrey, and she told me that... I'm," She looked at Remus face, he looked real worried.
Jessica couldn't believe that she was scared of telling Remus, she should be more scared of telling Sirius, but somehow she knew that Sirius would take it better than Remus.
"I'm Pregnant." She told him.
Remus instantly stopped what he was doing and sat down. "What?" He asked, chock struck over his face.
"You heard me the first time." Jessica told him, she bit her lip and prayed him to say something, anything.
"How?" He asked. "Of coursed I know how you could get Pregnant, but does this have something to do with your coma?"
"In a way." Jessica nodded.
"Who's the father?" Remus asked her the inevitable question.
At first Jessica didn't want to answer, but she needed to tell him. "Sirius." She said almost in a whisper.
"Please tell me that it happened before your coma." He said to her. He felt kind of creped out to think that this might have happened after her coma.
"Before, it was on exactly that day. Mum, dad and James were out for a few hours and Sirius and I, we... took it to the next level as they call it." She told him.
"Weren't you... you know, protective." Remus asked.
"I did have a contraceptive potion, but I just didn't have time to take it and since you have about 24 hour, I thought it could wait, but my coma happened." Jessica explained. "And because this baby weren't even a baby, just in the beginning process, it froze together with my body and when I unfroze, the process continued, and voila, a baby comes, it has fingernails now and all."
"What's going to happen now?" Remus asked her.
"I'm going to keep the baby." Jessica said, feeling quite steady in her voice, her body on the other hand was almost shaking. She felt so scared; she had no idea what to do.
"Okay, who else knows but me? Harry?"
"Harry doesn't know, but I will tell him though. Madame Pomfrey knows, and obviously she will tell Dumbledore, and since I need to finish school, it meant that the baby is going to interrupt my school year and..."
Remus noticed very easily how scared she was. "I'll help you, with anything. I can look after him or her when you are in school." He suddenly stood up and walked over to her, placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "I'll help you with everything." He added assuring.
Jessica nodded and calmed a down a bit. "It doesn't feel like a dream anymore." She said to him. "I can't believe that this is how the world turned out."
XXX
Later that day Jessica and the school nurse had a meeting with Professor Dumbledore about how to proceed with Jessica staying in school. Dumbledore was very thoughtful and understanding about Jessica's decision, it made Jessica feel so much better.
The meeting continued for the better part of two hours and by the end of it had several things already been decided.
All the teachers was going to know about Jessica's condition, and Jessica's sleeping area in the castle would be moved to the same dorm as Hermione and her two roommates, just in case something happened. As for the post-Pregnancy part would one of the small cottages in Hogsmeade be rented for the keeping of the baby, Remus would live there and help her with all the baby stuff, they figured that it would be easier for both the Jessica and Remus if the Cottage was near the castle but not in the castle, also would a direct link be established between the fireplace in madam Pomfreys office and the cottage.
Since it was too dangerous to cast a glamour-charm over Jessica's body, Jessica was recommended to cast it over the clothing instead, especially over the stomach area.
Madam Pomfrey confessed that she had absolutely no experience with babies and pregnancies whatsoever. She was actually at Hogwarts because she had been trained to treat children and damage's, Quidditch damages.
But for that to work out would Jessica get in contact with a healer/midwife named 'Cattermole' as a last name. Dumbledore assured Jessica that she would be very comfortable with this healer/midwife. And when he said that Jessica could swear that she saw a twinkle in his eye, as if she had missed out on some joke, but she didn't dare to ask what the joke was.
When Jessica had left Dumbledore's office later she did feel a little better, but she still felt rather freaked out. She went up to the Gryffindor Common room but saw neither Harry not his friends there. She continued up to her dorm, the dorm was also empty; none of the girls was there. She picked up her little bag of toiletries and walked over into the bathroom, she could so use a shower after all that had happened.
Once she was in the bathroom she looked at herself in the mirror, she tightened the shirt over her chest and pulled her elbows backward. This she hadn't noticed before. She had tried so hard to find visible proof of that she was pregnant and all this time there had been one she hadn't noticed, how could she not have noticed that her breasts had grown this much.
She released her shirt and pulled her elbows forward, a panicked thought got into her mind. Everybody was going to notice, everybody was going to see her as a slut, especially Harry, geez, she could so not tell him, what was she thinking?
Still, even though her parents were gone, she felt like she was disappointing them. She was 17 years old, unmarried and Pregnant. How did this happen? Of course she knew how it had happened. And then she thought of James, her sometimes annoying and over protective twin brother, how mad he would have been, especially thinking of that the father was actually his best friend, and his best friend had gone him behind his back by shagging his sister.
She shook of those thought, undressing quickly and stepping into the shower, trying to think of something else.
After a very long, warm and nice shower Jessica turned off the water and stepped out, she heard talking from out in the dorm. It seemed to be that the other girls had come back from their Hogsmeade trip and was now talking rather quietly out there. Jessica quickly dressed herself as she listened into their conversation.
"Well, I find it very unlikely that Sirius Black managed to escape on his own last night." One voice said.
"Well, who do you think would have helped him? Professor Lupin?" A second voice said who Jessica felt pretty sure to say that it belonged to Lanie, which would make the first voice belong to Gemma; the two of them were like glue.
"No, of course not, you heard Snape this morning." Gemma said with a rather harshness in her voice. "Lupin's a werewolf and last night was a full moon, wasn't it?"
"But you can't say that you think Harry and his friends helped him." Lanie asked chocked. "Think about what he did last year."
"Well, I think that Harry and his friends were victims of Sirius Black and if Lupin didn't help, that only leaves one person..." Gemma continued matter-of-factly.
"No," Lanie gasped. "Not... Jessica." She lowered her voice while saying Jessica as if she was afraid that she would be heard.
"Jessica said that she was in the same years as my uncle," A new third voice joined the conversation, Christina this time. "And my uncle told me at this Christmas that he was in the same year as both Lupin and Black. Which would mean that Jessica knew them in school... it all make sense now."
Jessica had enough of this conversation, she suddenly realized why the minister had been eyeing her in a funnily way yesterday, he had thought that she actually had helped Sirius, that she hadn't been confounded like Harry, Ron and Hermione. But the minister didn't have any evidence that a good lawyer couldn't dismiss, so there was no point in saying anything.
She opened the door to the bathroom with a slight force and stepped out, there, on Gemma's bed next to the bathroom, sat the three girls talking. When they saw Jessica, they smiled like they hadn't had the conversation Jessica had just heard, as if they hadn't painted her out as the bad guy three seconds ago.
"Oh, hi Jessica." Gemma said, the sneakiest of the three. "We have just come back from Hogsmeade, didn't see you there, want some candy?" Still smiling she held a small bag of candy in front of Jessica, still acting as if the conversation hadn't happened.
"No." Jessica said with a frown on her face. She walked over to her own bed and put back her bag of toiletries; before she could do anything else she noticed the barn owl sitting on her bedside table.
"He came about ten minutes ago." Christina said. "It's addressed to you."
"Obviously." Jessica muttered to herself, ignoring Christina.
She took the latter from the Owl and stroked it, which it seemed to like, and before opening the letter Jessica went back to the bathroom and filled a cup with cold water and placed it next to the Owl, it was thirsty. The owl hooted happily at the gesture and started drinking. When Jessica had done this she saw in the corner of her eye how Gemma whispered something to Lanie.
The letter was from a Greg Watson, attorney at Law. To be more specific he was the Potter family lawyer, he was taking care of all the legalities when it came to the family estate and the family assets. He wrote that he was glad to hear that Jessica was back and in good health and wanted to have a meeting with her, perhaps over dinner, to discuss some things. He also wrote that Jessica would have to decide the date and respond with the same owl as soon as possible.
Jessica remembered Greg Watson pretty well, when she had last met him had he been a man in his early thirties and a very nice one, a slightly good looking, great sense of humour and very cheerful man. As the way this letter was written, Jessica could tell that he was still the same kind of person only about twenty years older, which would make him about fifty years old now.
Jessica wrote back that it would be a delight to meet him and she chose the date for when the school ended, when they were supposed to aboard the train in Hogsmeade she could apparate to London. It was safe to apparate under the first three months of your pregnancy. But Jessica wrote back to him that he had to choose the restaurant and the time, and she would be there.
After sealing the envelope and giving it back to the owl, the owl bowed its head, as if to say thank you, and then fluttering out the open window and out of sight.
"Jessica, where are you going to stay this summer?" Christina was now over at her own bed.
"Home." Jessica answered automatically.
"Oh, like your home, as in where you grew up?" Christina continued.
"Yes, my home." Jessica responded annoyed, why couldn't they just leave her alone so that she could leave and they could continue talking behind her back?
"That's not so far away from where I live." Christina continued like it was a good thing.
"I know." Jessica said. She suddenly felt like doing something very drastically and without thinking about it first.
"You do?" The other girl continued, sounding very surprised.
"Yes, I do know where Sebastian lives, I have actually been there." Jessica said and knew what she could do.
It was true, she had actually been at the home of Sebastian Rutland, and it was actually that winter vacation, she had volunteered to babysit his little boy, Patrick. Who actually was just a few months old and the cutest little thing that she had ever seen.
Before Christina had time to answer, Jessica stood up from her bed and walked over to the bathroom, she had seen a scissor in there, must belong to one of the girls. But before she closed the door she turned back around to the other girls.
"Yes," She said out loud to them, they looked back at her, confused. "I did know Sirius Black when I was at school, in matter of fact; he was my brothers best friend. And that fact makes his betrayal even worse, and no, I would not help the person who's the reason that I don't have a brother anymore." She lied with so much anger in her voice; she knew that she couldn't tell them the truth; but she had to tell them something so that they wouldn't paint her as the bad person anymore.
Then she walked into the bathroom and closed the door. Oh Merlin, she was such a drama queen.
A/N; what's with the lack of Reviews for the last chapter? And those who did review... thank you.
This chapter isn't even half as long as the last one, but you'll have to learn to live with that. And what is Jessica going to do in the bathroom with that scissor? Hmm... I guess that you'll have to wait and see.
Next chapter will have answers to a lot of questions you might have collected during the story so far. Like what kind of creature her animagus is? Anyone wanna guess?
And I do think that it would be more likely that Snape would blame Jessica for the escape of Sirius than Harry and the rest, Snape probably knows how Jessica feels for Sirius and if she really believed that he was innocent...
I hope you enjoy the chapter and review.
review!!