Those Crazy Nine Months

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Harry! You're late. It's about time you got here," Hermione reprimands as the car carrying the men pulled up the drive to the Burrow.

"Sorry 'Mione, you know flooing makes me nauseous," Harry says, pulling himself out of the passenger seat. "I'll never be able to fly again, I feel like a bloody house! Fall off my broom I will."

"Come on, Harry. It's not much longer," Neville says, smiling to his boyfriend. "Think about it this way. In a bit we'll have a baby to teach how to fly...-"

"You most certainly will not be teaching this baby how to fly!" Hermione fumes, cutting off the end of Neville's sentence. "Not any time soon anyways."

"Don't worry Hermione, we'll wait until it can walk," Harry says with a grin, throwing an arm around Hermione's shoulder and turning her back towards the Burrow.

Just before Hermione can reprimand him again, Molly calls from the house, "If you all keep arguing out there it'll be born before we're ready." She is answered with a round of laughter as the three younger adults enter the house.

Smiling to Harry, Molly hands him a silver bracelet. "Last week, Hermione discovered that the last wizard to get pregnant invented a charm that can be set to go off when the baby is ready to be born. We've been working non-stop to combine it with a charm to monitor the baby's health. Just in the slightest of chance that something might happen to it before it is born."

Shaking nervously, Harry slips the silver chain around the opposite wrist of the one holding the bracelet Neville gave him for Christmas. The bracelet glows a faint blue color before pulsing with the slow steady heartbeat of the sleeping babe inside him.

"We also made it so the bracelet would change colors to tell us what is going on. Blue means everything is good, and when it is time for the baby to be born it will turn green. If it turns any other color, or starts to turn green you need to get here as quick as you can," Hermione explains, shuffling through a pile of papers on the living room table.

"Come along Harry; better do your check up right quick," Molly says, offering her hand to Harry to lead him into another room.

The raven-haired boy nods, smiling to Neville and Hermione as he leaves with Mrs. Weasley.

Neville starts pacing nervously, and Hermione chuckles. "Everything will be all right Neville. Molly is one of the best in her field. Just look at all of the personal experience she's had."

Neville flashes a grin, saying, "I don't know how Arthur did it. Harry is usually easy going, but I don't know if I could survive his bad days if he had Molly's temper." His eyes go wide with emphasis. Hermione giggles as he continues, "I just hope Harry isn't nearly as fertile as Molly was. This child I know we can handle, but seven or more?" Neville sighs, shaking his head.

In the other room, Molly runs the standard pregnancy monitoring charms. "Brain waves; active. Must be dreaming, looks as if this little one is going to have a very active imagination. Heartbeat; ... Strange. Harry darling, does Michael have a history of twins in his family?"

Harry looks over at Molly with a surprised look on his face. "Yes, his father had a twin... Why?"

"Well I'm getting two heartbeats right now, it is possible that one baby was hiding behind the other last time you came for a check up. If you had let me run the charm to identify the sex we might have known this sooner. Silly boy," Molly says with a comforting smile.

"Twins..?" Harry says softly, feeling a little light-headed. The pulsing of the bracelet skips a beat before beating a bit faster than it had been a minute ago. Both sets of eyes turn to the bracelet.

"Stay calm Harry, don't want to get the babies all worked up," Mrs. Weasley says, turning her eyes back to the charm's readout.

"I think they are getting themselves worked up...," Harry says, lifting the arm with the bracelet on it. Having gotten her attention again he points to the chain links as they alternate swirling green and blue.

"Oh my. Well we weren't quite ready for this but it looks as if we might have to make do... Let's keep watching for a bit before we alert Hermione and Neville," Molly says, before turning again to Harry's stomach and refreshing the monitoring charms.

Three minutes after they noticed the bracelet changing colors, it pulses with a steady green light, and Harry feels his first contraction.

"Whoa!" Harry says, sitting straight up on the transfigured hospital bed and clutching his stomach. At the same time the monitoring charms Molly had cast, flashed red before glowing a steady green to match the bracelet. "Oh... That was... not comfortable. I suppose it's going to get worse isn't it?" he asks softly.

"We will try to make it as easy as we can," Molly reassures him, as she casts a charm to time the break between contractions. "I'm going to go get Hermione and Neville."

Both of the brown haired people look at the door Harry had disappeared through not more than twenty minutes ago when they hear him shout. Neville casts a worried glance Hermione's way before taking a step towards the door.

The door opens before he can get to it, and Molly steps out.