"Can I bring the boys back with me for the ultrasound?" Petunia asked. "Only, I just picked them up from school and don't have anyone else to watch them for me today."
"As long as they can be quiet, that's absolutely fine, ma'am."
Petunia turned to Dudley and Harry. "Did you hear that? You can come watch, but be good." Both boys nodded very seriously. Petunia took their hands as she followed the sonologist down the winding hall to a darkened room.
"Do you want a gown to change into, Mrs. Dursley?" The sonologist asked.
"No, thank you. It doesn't matter if a little gel gets on these."
"Go ahead and lie down, then."
Petunia took her place on the narrow, half-reclined bed. "Dudley, Harry, come stand by me, out of her way. And remember to stay quiet, whispers only." They dutifully tiptoed up by her head, leaning slightly on the mattress to get a closer look at the interesting machine.
"It doesn't look like a camera," Harry whispered. "How does it make pictures?"
"Well, it can't work like a regular camera when the baby's still inside, can it?" Petunia said laughingly. "It's called an ultrasound because the machine uses sound instead of light to make the pictures."
"How?" Dudley asked curiously.
"Pictures are made out of light?"
"Not exactly. Regular pictures are made because of the way light affects picture film. You have to keep film away from light until it's properly developed, or else you'll lose the pictures on it. As for ultrasound... well, I'm sure - I'm sorry, what's your name again, miss?"
"Monica," the technician responded while entering Petunia's patient identification into the machine.
"Thank you. Monica could explain it better, but sound waves actually cause little vibrations when they pass through solid material. That's why you can feel a loud car radio or a motorcycle engine in your feet, not just hear it in your ears as it passes."
"I like motorcycles," Harry supplied.
"I know you do, Harry, but they're awfully dangerous and I don't want you going near one. Anyway, the ultrasound machine can detect how those little sound vibrations travel through different kinds of material and makes a picture based on the measurements."
"Wow," Dudley whispered.
"Mrs. Dursley, when is you due date?" Monica asked.
"June sixteenth."
"My birthday's in June!" Dudley announced excitedly.
"Whisper, dear."
"Sorry."
"Thank you. Could you roll up your shirt for me?" They got started with the scan, and the boys settled down, watching with fascination. After a moment of searching during which blurry gray patterns swirled around the screen, the sonologist focused in on a bright white curve that could only be the baby's skull. Petunia smiled widely. Her smile broadened as Monica adjusted the ultrasound probe slightly, bringing a clear profile of the baby's face into view.
"There she is..." Petunia breathed. Monica saved a picture of the profile and sent it to print out below the machine, then continued making her measurements. Petunia felt a kick and had to smile as she watched the little movement on the screen. "She's awake. If you watch closely, you might be able to see her moving," she told the boys softly. They both huddled in further, ogling the screen. Petunia felt another little kick, and Dudley gasped.
"I saw it!" he whispered excitedly.
"Where?" Harry asked, leaning so far forwards he was practically crawling onto the mattress with her. Petunia glanced at him and noticed he was squinting.
She frowned. "Harry, can't you see from there?"
"It's really blurry, not like telly." True, but she recalled Harry also tended to sit closer to the television than Dudley did. She wondered if he was near-sighted. She remembered James Potter had worn glasses when she had met him. She made a mental note to ask the pediatrician about checking his vision.
"He can come a bit closer," Monica said. "There's room for one next to me, so long as he doesn't try to touch anything."
"Can you promise not to touch, Harry?"
"I promise," Harry said instantly and tiptoed around behind her to come up next to Monica's elbow. Helpfully, there was another kick, and both boys gasped in delight this time. "I saw it!" Harry whispered ecstatically.
They continued watching as Monica methodically took pictures from different angles, checking different measurements. She occasionally commented what they were looking at but did not offer any interpretations, explaining that was up to the reading physician. The exception came towards the end. "Looks like you're right, Mrs. Dursley. She's definitely a girl..." Point to Sev. Not that she had doubted him. He wasn't prone to exaggeration when it came to his own abilities, only when it came to his irritation at work. "And we're done. Just let me clean up, and you can be off..."
Petunia could not stop looking at the ultrasound picture the sonologist gave her to take home. Her eyes followed the curve of the little nose and lips, traced the round belly, counted the toes on the one foot that happened to be visible. Harry and Dudley asked to look at the picture multiple times, and she of course let them, carefully supervising to ensure they would not bend the paper in their excitement. She resolved to get a new photo album next time she was at the shops. The boys settled down after their nap and spent the rest of the afternoon playing their latest, funniest and therefore favorite game with the baby doll: Mummy's Hungry. Petunia watched them while she sorted through a box of Dudley's old baby things, deciding which items to wash and move to the nursery for the new baby and which to leave in the attic.
It was Harry's turn to play "Mummy" first. He sprawled dramatically on the floor, hiding the doll under his shirt. "I'm hungry!"
"What do you want?" Dudley asked.
"I don't know!"
"Here, have some salad!" Dudley handed Harry some scraps of green construction paper from their art supplies, and Harry pretended to eat it.
"I'm still hungry!"
Dudley brought him more and more items from around the house and identified them as increasingly ludicrous things that Harry continued to pretend to eat: the decorative basket of silk flowers in the guest room became a whole bag of crisps. A shoebox full of marbles became a tub of ice cream. Another shoebox full of King Arthur-themed figurines became a shepherd's pie big enough for the whole family. A collection of socks stuffed inside one of Dudley's winter hats was a "block man" because neither of them had yet learned to say "blanc mange" correctly. A tall stack of picture books wrapped in one of Petunia's scarves was dubbed a chocolate cake with TEN LAYERS. A stuffed animal owl Sev had given Harry for Christmas became a roast chicken. Petunia burst out laughing as Dudley finally presented Harry with a whole roasted "cow:" three pillows taken from the beds upstairs and tied together with several of Vernon's belts, with a few black socks tucked under the belts to imitate the dark patches on a Holstein's coat, and a black-and-white drawing of the cow's smiling face taped to one end.
The boys grinned up at her. Harry accepted the "cow" from Dudley, opened his mouth wide, and buried his face in the pillows, making a noise like "om nom nom..." For a brief moment, the pillows darkened in places and bulged, until they really did resemble a huge stuffed animal milk cow.
"Wow, you ate the whole cow! Are you still hungry, Mummy?" Dudley shouted.
"I don't see how Mummy possibly swallowed the cow in the first place," Petunia told them. "But you certainly can't feed her anything bigger than a cow, or goodness knows what would happen."
The mystical illusion vanished as Harry collapsed into giggles. "There was an old lady who swallowed a cow..." he sang in between giggles.
"Ooh! I get to be Old Lady Mummy next, and you have to bring me all the things in the song!" Dudley declared.
"Okay. I'll get you a real spider from the cupboard under the stairs."
"You're gross."
"You're grosser if you eat it."
"There will be no eating of spiders," Petunia said firmly. If there were spiders in that cupboard again, she really needed to clean out and dust the place. She hadn't bothered with it in over a month, too busy rearranging the upstairs, now that Vernon had put together the boys' new bunk beds. Both the nursery and the boys' room were rather cramped at the moment, because Petunia had judged the top bunk to be too high to let either of the boys climb into and sleep in unsupervised at the moment. Thus, while Dudley now slept in the bottom bunk, Harry was still in his old bed in the nursery, while half his things had moved to the other room. She had the two of them practice climbing up and down the ladder every day, and Vernon was going to install a safety rail this weekend. She still wasn't going to give the green light to use the upper bunk until Sev had a chance to come by and place the bed alarm and cushioning charms he'd mentioned when she'd listed off her concerns to him upon first seeing the intimidating beds.
Unfortunately, Harry did find a live spider for Dudley to pretend to eat. Petunia snatched it from him and released it into the garden before setting off to clear out the webs from that cupboard. While she was cleaning, she rediscovered the blanket Harry had been wrapped in when he was first set on their doorstep, tucked into the back corner of the shelf. She smiled wistfully at the baby blanket, wondering whether Lily had purchased it, or whether it was a gift from their mother or one of the Potters, or from a friend. It was dusty, and she added it to the pile of baby things to be washed. She would ask Harry if he wanted it for his bed or if she should take it to the nursery. Probably, he would want to share. He was like that. And he was a good influence on Dudley that way. She returned to the living room to find Harry handing Dudley his piggy bank (a Christmas gift from Grandpa Herbert) to pretend to eat. The boys ended up singing and mumming "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" over and over again for the next hour, until Petunia turned on a cartoon to make them give it a rest.
She met Vernon at the door when he got home and immediately handed him the ultrasound picture. He smiled widely and put his strong hands on her belly as he kissed her cheek. "Did it all look good, then?"
"I don't have the official results yet, but the sonologist didn't look worried." She would get a call from the doctor tomorrow or the day after to tell her about the results and whether she had to come in for more testing, but in her heart, Petunia knew, their little girl was perfect. Just perfect.
Author's note: It's been awhile since we've had a fluffy Harry and the Dursleys exclusive. Enjoy. Thanks for the reviews, will continue to update Sundays.