Sometimes It Be That Way

The Baby Identity

*

Lorelai: Aren’t baby shower balloons supposed to reflect the sex of the baby? Blue for boys, pink for girls.

Rory: You would think.

Lorelai: What’s green for, aliens? (Gilmore Girls: Take the Devilled Eggs)

*

The snow blew this way and that, and as Draco and Ginny finally came up for air, Ginny was a lot happier than she had been going in to the kiss. She almost felt invicible somehow, like nothing, not even the Fab Three and their impending talk, could bring her down. Too bad she couldn't keep that feeling forever.

The rest of that night, Ginny and Draco stayed in the Tower talking. Ginny remembered the present (a large statue of a green dragon, roaring fiercely and guarding his treasure) and brought it out for him, happily presenting it to him and making him feel a little embarassed as he hadn't gotten her a present. She took pleasure in his embarassment, since it seemed that no one could embarass a Malfoy.

They kissed some more and by the time it was 1 am, the pair finally decided it was time to go to bed. Draco blew out all the candles and picked up his dragon while Ginny picked up all her bags and her yet-unfinished coffee (surprising, even for her) and towed them towards the door. Draco caught up with her and they walked down the Tower stairs together. They crept through the halls, whispering about what they were going to do the next day, cautiously avoiding Filch and his cat. When it came time to part, they had another kiss. A bit prolonged, perhaps, but Ginny finally made it to Gryffindor Tower and had somehow avoided the 'talk' with Hermione, Harry and Ron. She hurried through the empty common room, up to her dorm where she put her bags down and her coffee on the bedside table before collapsing on her bed and finally falling asleep.

*

Nearly a month passed without incident. Hermione was busy ignoring Ginny and doing her homework while Ron and Harry cast furtive glances towards Ginny's general direction. She began to find this annoying as the few people who knew about her situation and who could help her deal with it were ignoring her. She would often feel kicks from the baby and would desperately want to tell Hermione about it, but would realize that she couldn't anymore. She had alienated her best friends and had found them giving her the cold shoulder. She knew she probably deserved it, but she selfishly wanted them back.

The only person she could confide in these days was Draco, and those meetings were few and far between. Being a grade ahead of her, he had different classes and more work. The other Slytherins and his position as captain on his Quidditch team kept him busy most nights. And she herself had many appointments with Madam Pomfrey to check how the baby was doing.

The stress of it all was more than she could handle. She ate for two people, she had nightmares every second night (despite the tonic Madam Pomfrey gave her), her best friend probably hated her, her only brother at Hogwarts was ignoring her, the father of the baby was out of the picture, her boyfriend was too busy to see her, and her homework load was that of an average Sixth Year: way too much, even though the teachers did everything they could to help her out without tipping her pregnancy off to the other students. She cried frequently because of this and there was nobody there to soothe her.

"Hullo, Miss Weasley," greeted Madam Pomfrey cheerfully one night as Ginny came through the door for her checkup. "How are you today?"

"Fine, thanks," Ginny lied as Madam Pomfrey led her into the nurse's private examination room. The nurse drew the blinds closed and Ginny sat on the bed in the corner. Madam Pomfrey began hooking her up to an ultrasound monitor the nurse had stashed away in a cupboard.

First, Madam Pomfrey checked her pulse, her blood pressure, and her eyes, ears, and throat. Then, Ginny unbuttoned the bottom of her top and lay on the bed. Madam Pomfrey lifted the illusion spell placed on Ginny to make her look her normal size and her stomach ballooned to the size of a large watermelon. The nurse applied a weird-coloured, very cold ointment to her belly and began pressing a weird stick to her stomach while looking at the screen of the ultrasound monitor.

"What is this anyway?" Ginny asked, frowning at the monitor in confusion.

"Oh, it's an instrument them Muggles use for looking at babies in the womb," Madam Pomfrey told her, frighteningly cheery. "This is the first time I've been able to use it, though. Professor Dumbledore spent nearly two months looking for an enchantment to run it here without that, um-- eklicity?"

"Electricity," Ginny corrected, remembering Hermione's lessons on Muggles from the previous summer.

"Yes, that's the word," Madam Pomfrey agreed. She turned her head back to the monitor and began outlining the black and white image that was there. She pointed out the head, the hands, the feet, the eyes and the sex organ. It was in this way, with Madam Pomfrey's head stuck in a book detailing what the picture should show, that Ginny finally found out that the baby was a girl.

Where her mother had sons at first, Ginny's first child was to be a girl. And this girl was going to be special. She hoped that the girl would have red hair, like her own, and maybe Harry's eyes. She could just see it: a year from now, helping her little girl dress in cute little dresses, putting braids or pigtails in her hair, going to a Muggle zoo or visiting the Burrow. She could feel joy bubbling up inside of her from that picture. Suddenly, she couldn't wait to have the baby.

She barely noticed Madam Pomfrey telling her to take a day off school to relax and bring her stress level down. She barely saw the nurse moving the ultrasound monitor back into the cupboard it came from. She didn't even notice the illusion being placed on her stomach again or Madam Pomfrey shoving a nightmare tonic into her hands.

When she left the hospital wing, she paused and murmured to the silent hall, "I'm going to have a girl." She could hardly hide her smile, she was so excited. She squeaked happily and hurried off to the kitchens for a bedtime snack.

But, of course, she barely noticed a certain Slytherin, standing in the shadows of the corridor, a look of confusion on her usually smug face. And so it begins...