Chapter Five
As the sun fully ascended over the lake to the east, the diamond-pane windows were struck with the first morning light, casting prisms of brilliant color across the walls of the girl's lavatory in the north tower. Hermione Granger stood in front of the full length mirror between the enormous bathtub and shower stalls, and inspected her underwear-clad form. She had always been an early riser, and though she was sure none of the other eighth year girls would be awake yet on the cold Saturday morning, she had cast a locking charm on the door just in case.
The steam of her recent shower still curled around her feet as she ran her hands down her neck, her ribs, and resting them just above the swell of her abdomen that seemed to have grown decidedly larger since the last time she dared look at herself undressed. Her bra, a recent, slightly embarrassing gift from her mother from a boutique shop in France, barely contained her swollen breasts. Hermione wrinkled her nose. She would have to use a resizing spell on it soon, and hoped she was skilled enough at the useful charm Molly had taught her to not ruin the delicate red lace and careful stitching.
Hermione's hands traveled further down until they rested on her expanding hips, rubbing at the sore joints. The extraneous walk across the castle and up the tower steps several times a day were causing her immense pain in her legs. Her pelvis felt heavy as if she were wearing a belt of rocks with another one being added every day. The cushioning charms she had cast on her shoes were the only things keeping her from refusing to walk at all.
How do women do this every day without magic? Hermione pondered, finally resting her hands upon her distended stomach. She ran a light finger up one of the faint red lines that were starting to appear lengthwise along her belly.
It had been difficult to see the muggle women sitting in the waiting room last week as Hermione attended the obstetrician appointment she had delayed for so long. Most of them had come with their partner, and amoung them the joy was evident. Their expectant mother's eyes shone brightly as they caressed their abdomens with tenderness. One was reading a parenting magazine while the women next to her chatted happily with her husband, their fingers twining together, pulling back, then seeking each other's warmth again.
Hermione felt a twist of envy at their looks of devotion as she sat alone, absently skimming a gossip magazine.
Before, when she had thought about the future and the children she might have, she had imagined a scene such as the one next to her. The child in her future had been wanted, born of love with a doting father. She bit her lip, and stared guiltily down at her swollen belly.
This poor creature, to have such a cold mother and such a cruel father.
"I'm guessing twelve weeks. Am I right?"
Hermione looked up, pulled from the inner world of her thoughts where she spent so much time as of late, and stared blankly at the woman who had taken the seat next to her.
"Pardon?" She asked.
The woman smiled, her caramel skin glowing even under the harsh fluorescent lights of the office. "Whenever I come for my appointments, I try to guess how far along everyone is. Staves off the boredom of the wait. So, twelve weeks?"
"Um, well no. Nearly twenty-three weeks along," Hermione said, pulling herself up straighter.
The woman tisked and adjusted the purse that was sitting on top of her stomach. "You're so tiny! Are you sure you're eating enough, darling?"
Hermione could feel her face heating up in embarrassment, and before she could politely tell the shaming woman to mind her own bloody business, a clipboard-yielding nurse came to the check-in counter and called her name.
If Hermione thought the mortification was done, she was mistaken. Inside the office, the doctor subjected her to a slew of tests and a pelvic examination all the while chastising her for not coming to the clinic earlier in her pregnancy. When she was finished with the exam, and everything appeared to be normal ("Though you need to gain more weight, Miss Granger"), the doctor gave her a dozen pamphlets on proper nutrition and the development stages of the fetus as well as book recommendations.
After scheduling a follow-up appointment for the results of her bloodwork and an ultrasound, Hermione had popped over to the adjacent chemist to purchase some prenatal vitamins then headed back to Diagon Alley.
Before disapparating back to school, she discreetly purchased some books: "The Witches' Essential Guide to Expectancy", "The Witching Womb", and "Baby and Brew: Practical Potions for the Magical Pregnancy".
The last book had certainly come in handy. Rubbing an ointment she brewed for the stretch marks, she felt the tiniest of movements flutter against her fingers.
Hermione gasped and poked the spot on her abdomen, hoping to feel it move again. The feeling was odd like something was tickling her from the inside. It didn't feel so alien anymore, so intrusive. It was a part of her.
"Could you feel me, baby? Did you know my hands were near you?" Hermione whispered softly, patting her skin where she had felt its movement. She didn't know if it was a boy or girl, didn't care to know, as long as it was healthy.
A stab of guilt flashed through her as she thought of the last few months. After finishing all of the books and pamphlets, Hermione had unexpectedly burst into tears at her own negligence. The last year had been filled with terror and uncertainty, and she had endured things that would have broken others. A part of her old self had died on the cold, hard floor in Malfoy Manor.
Those were things that she had lost, but she was not lost. The grey fog in her mind was starting to clear, slowly, and the first bits of light she'd seen in months were shining through. Had she lingered in the gloom much longer, Hermione knew it would consume her. She had survived and must survive for herself.
For us both, she thought as she caressed her belly. She had been indulgent in her misery, but was it the fault of the child within her? It was a victim of circumstances it had no control over, like herself.
But now, now she had control, and after she had finished mourning her past mistakes, Hermione sensed a strength she hadn't felt in months return to her. She could handle this. She would eat healthily, take her vitamins, consult a mid-witch.
She would do what she had known in her heart she could do months ago - love and care for this child who had not asked to be born.
The realization had been a confusing mix of anxiety and fear, but also relief and optimism. Finishing school, telling her friends, her parents….she pushed those thoughts away before they engulfed her again. She had finally chosen a path to walk and those obstacles would be dealt with when the time came.
The first hurdle, thought Hermione as she finished dressing for the day and cast a disillusionment charm on herself, is to get to breakfast before Neville eats all the bacon.
"Ok, when we open the door, pretend to be surprised," Ginny instructed after side-apparating meters from the front steps of the Burrow.
Hermione's vision blurred, her stomach twisted violently, and she lurched forward to throw up in the grass.
"Is there something about our garden that always makes you sick?" joked Ginny.
"Ugh, I hate side-apparating," Hermione groaned, closing her eyes to stop the spinning.
"Well, here," Ginny said, casting a clean-up charm on her ailing friend, "and don't forget to appear shocked and awed by how wonderful and thoughtful we are," Ginny whispered theatrically as they opened the front door.
"SURPRISE!" came the cheer from the Burrow as they both entered.
"Happy 19th" hovered in the air like lit sparklers as George, Angela, Lee, and Seamus heralded their entrance with little trumpets that sounded like blowing raspberries. Harry, Ron, and the Weasley parents stood smiling, front and center.
Hermione laughed and glanced about the house in authentic surprise. The Weasley's long table was filled with all manner of tasty food with a large, gold cake in the shape of a lion at the center. The ceiling could hardly be seen with all the red and yellow streamers and glowing balloons littered across it. Shimmering white lights zipped across the room, creating the illusion of a hundred fireflies - no doubt an invention of George's.
"Happy birthday, Hermione!" Harry and Ron cried in unison, coming around the table to envelope her in a tight hug. She turned just in time for them to not feel her bump, and was eternally grateful she decided to wear the largest, fuzziest sweater she owned.
Harry pulled away from their group embrace, but Ron held her a few moments longer, giving her the slightest peck on the cheek. His cheeks had a smudge of scarlet across them as he let her go. Her heart fluttered to her throat, and she was sure she was as red as him.
Hermione cleared her throat, "Thank you! This all looks brilliant. You didn't have to go through the trouble, Molly."
The Weasley matron waved her hand as Bill handed her more plates for the table. "S'no trouble at all, dear! You're practically a member of the family, and we all need more reasons to celebrate."
"Oy, I helped, too," Ron protested, snatching a plate from his passing mother.
"Helped eat most of the meat pies, more like," George chimed in and winked at Hermione. "Are there any more steak ones left?"
Ron shrugged as he carefully piled food onto his already-crowded plate, "Dunno. I need the protein for my auror training. They have us running drills every day at the crack of dawn, haven't they Harry?" Hermione couldn't help but notice the way Ron's arms and chest filled out his long sleeve shirt that had always been baggy on him before. The additional food and exercise didn't seem to be hurting him one bit.
"Yeah, but at the rate you're eating, mate, they'll have to have you running two a day," Harry answered, laughing, and pulled Ginny in for another kiss.
"Ha ha," Ron said sardonically and sat next to Hermione. "And, gross. Get a room, you two."
"Gladly. How about yours, Ron?" Ginny replied, smacking her brother's head as she joined them at the table.
Hermione chuckled and tucked into her birthday feast, surrounded by the comfort of her friends.
The Burrow was, for the most part, the same as it has always been - full of the warmth of love and laughter and Molly's multitude of knitting projects - but it took Hermione a moment to discern the differences.
Some of them were obvious changes. The Weasley's now only had two children living at home, and with Arthur's long-overdue promotion to Head of the Muggle Liaison Office, it had allowed them to finally update some of the older furniture and hire magical contractors to make repairs to the house.
The other changes were more subtle. The lack of errant school supplies and Quidditch gear; the silence in the rooms above them; Arthur's prematurely white hair; the missing hand of the Weasley clock.
Hermione watched as one of the shimmering fire-lights fell onto the tablecloth, leaping about and buzzing intermittently before it stopped, and it's light dimmed forever. She touched it and it dissolved to ash.
"Are these an invention for your shop, George?"
George smudged the ash further into the cloth, frowning, "Yeah, they're only in the prototype stage. Lee and I are testing them out, but can't get them to last longer than an hour."
"Hope you get these working before the end of the year. My mam would love them for my sister's birthday," Seamus added.
Hermione hadn't been surprised to learn Seamus wouldn't be returning to Hogwarts and instead joining her two best friends in auror training. It was an open secret that his mother struggled financially while raising her children alone, and having her son help out was a huge relief, she was sure.
"So, how's Hogwarts been, Hermione? Are they teaching you all the secrets of the magical universe that we'll never be privy to?" Seamus asked.
"Oh, just the mystery of life after death, how to achieve immortality, and why cats always land on their feet. Stuff you'll never need to know, what with being an Auror and all," she quipped in amusement. "No, it's not all that different from before, really. Easier, in fact, without all of the adventurous distractions." Hermione elbowed Harry in the ribs, and he choked on his food.
"I never made you come with me…" he muttered and Ginny guffawed.
"Of course you wouldn't mind the impossible list of assignments we have, Hermione. I have to bring my textbooks to the loo with me just to keep up! Flickwick is requiring all charms to be cast non-verbally, and if McGonagall spots one tiny little mistake in anything you transfigure, you don't receive full marks. It's maddening!"
"I don't envy ya that!" Ron chimed in. "Being on the field is tough, but at least it's fun. Last week, Croyston let us come along for a real manhunt."
Harry snorted, "It was more like an 'all hands on deck' situation. The death eater that escaped custody is one of the most dangerous and unpredictable wizards they've faced. They need everyone they have out there looking for him."
At that, the whole table quieted, and Harry's mouth snapped shut, a look of guilt on his face.
"Who was it?" George asked at the same time Angela whispered, "What do you mean escaped custody?"
Hermione's stomach tightened as she asked, "Nothing was in the Prophet about an escapee."
Ron answered, his mouth a grim line, "They're hushing it up; don't want to cause a panic, you see. He escaped while being transported from Azkaban to a special facility on the continent. It'll make the Ministry look like idiots if the public finds out some aurors bungled the job. After all the troubles recently, the last thing they want is to seem incompetent."
"Why was he being transported?" Angela pressed on in the tense silence.
Harry ran a hand through his already disheveled black hair, releasing a sigh, "We're not really supposed to be telling you lot all this," he paused and looked at the concerned faces around him. "With the Dementors leaving and the chaos after Voldemort's death, the Ministry threw a bunch of death eaters or anyone suspected of being one into a cell at Azkaban. It started to get overcrowded."
"All slapdash like. Weren't paying attention to names," Seamus added darkly.
"One of them was a werewolf," Harry explained. "The guard's found that out the hard way the night after a full moon."
"I heard the other prisoners in his cell were so mangled and torn up, they couldn't tell who was who, or what went where."
"Thanks, Ron," groaned Ginny.
Dread seized Hermione's breath like a hand of ice around her throat. No, it can't be him. Please anyone else, but him.
"And you haven't caught him yet?" Angela demanded.
"Greyback is a right slippery bastard. We'll get the drop on him soon. He was spotted heading north just yesterday..."
The frantic pounding of her heart drown out Seamus' defensive voice, and Hermione ambled towards the back of the Burrow, unaware that she had stood at all.
The air had abandoned her lungs, and she gasped for breath, "no, no, no, no" repeating relentlessly in her increasingly foggy mind.
Hermione?
Hermione!
Her name was the last thing she heard before passing out.
A/N:
I'M NOT DEAD! YAY!(?) Depression is a bitch, guys.
This chapter is dedicated to Titasha, the bilingual woman who has patiently beared with me and my terrible writing habits from the get-go.