A Fruitful Love ; The Potter Twins

11. An Early Arrival

With Umbridge in charge, Hogwarts became a miserable place. The new rules she added were really strict, and everyone hated them. That is, apart from Malfoy and his goons, who had a great time enforcing them in a most unfair way.

The weeks and months passed slowly and the OWL exams grew ever closer. Things were also growing closer for Elena too. Her stomach seemed to be growing bigger every day as her baby grew inside of her.

The stress of the exams was also making things harder for Elena's health. Madam Pomfrey kept coming around to check on her, and she gave Elena a special tea to drink to keep her blood pressure from going up too much.

Elena had gone to her dormitory to have a lay down between lessons, when Hermione came to find her.

"Hey, El. How are you feeling?" asked Hermione.

"I'm okay," she replied. "I just came up here for a nap, but I can't seem to be able to sleep."

"Oh dear," said Hermione. "I was heading to the library now. Do you want to come with me and do some studying instead?"

"Yeah, that should help send me to sleep," said Elena, with a grin.

Hermione frowned and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Humph, that's not what I meant," she said. "You're spending too much time with George and Fred."

Elena giggled. "I was just joking," she said. "I'd love to come and study with you."

Elena and Hermione grabbed their bags and left the dormitory. When they reached the library, Hermione found an empty table for them at the back.

As Elena went to sit down, she noticed that her legs felt wet. She looked down and saw there was a small puddle on the floor between her feet.

"Oh, what's that?" said Elena.

Hermione looked around and saw the puddle on the floor. She stared for a moment, then she gasped out loud.

"I think it's your waters have broken," said Hermione. "It happens when you go into labour."

"Into labour? But I can't," gasped Elena. "I'm not due for another three weeks."

"That isn't good," said Hermione. "We need to get you to the hospital wing."

Elena started to panic and breathe rapidly. "What do you mean it's not good?" she said. "Is there something wrong with the baby?"

"Oh, err, no. That's not what I meant," said Hermione, nervously. "Err, I meant, umm, it's not good for it to happen in the library. The books might get damaged. I'm sure everything is fine with you and the baby."

"Are you sure?" said Elena, as she wiped away the tears from her cheek.

"Err, yeah, probably," Hermione mumbled.

Suddenly, Elena felt a tight pain in her stomach. It felt like she was having period cramps. Elena groaned and clutched her stomach.

"That's probably a contraction," said Hermione. "I think we are supposed to time the gap between them."

"Okay," groaned Elena, as the pain began to ease again. "How big should the gap be?"

At that moment, Hermione's brain had gone completely blank. She had read some books about pregnancy, but she couldn't remember any of what it had said.

"Let's just get you to the hospital wing," said Hermione. "We can let Madam Pomfrey take care of all that."

Hermione put her arm around Elena, and started to help her walk out of the library. As they moved, Hermione saw that Neville was in the next aisle looking at a book.