Nine months

February

 A potions fuck up

I was due in two weeks!

I was due to give birth to an actual child in two weeks!

"Have we sorted absolutely everything?" I gasped, leaning on the edge of a cupboard to catch my breath. Really, a heavily pregnant woman shouldn't have been lugging things around, but I didn't trust anyone else, and my magic was limited. Around me were Ginny (who was still staring daggers at her youngest brother), Ron (who looked uncomfortable), Harry and Mr and Mrs Weasley, who were in just about every day now in time for the big day.

"Yes, my dear" replied Mrs Weasley, who'd come prepared in an apron, though I wasn't sure why. "Everything is set up- baby monitors, the cot and everything else you could need." 

We'd convinced McGonagall to let us knock a dent in her nice wall to create a tiny nursery next to my bed, with a silencing charm around the pair of us, so any late-night crying wouldn't wake anyone else up except me.

We packed everything into the little draws: nappies, hand-me-downs from the Weasleys (and a brand new Weasley jumper that was absolutely tiny), toys from Harry's trunk (he didn't have many as a child, so he's grown attached to the ones he had) and all the carefully hand-knitted shawls, blankets and jumpers from Luna. Even Lavender and Parvati had contributed- there was a bear bigger than the baby which they'd named Marshmellow.

"Thank you all so much," I said when we'd finally finished. It did look nice and made it all alarmingly real. There would be a fourth person in this dormitory very soon.

(~~~)

During the night, I had the usual cramping in my stomach that I'd usually put down to period pains, though I knew it couldn't be that. It was mild enough to be muted with a swig of Snape's potion, and I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. It wasn't the first time I'd been woken up by stomach pain, and I thought it wouldn't be the last.

(~~~)

On the morning of the eighth of February, a few days later, I'd felt my legs grow wet before I'd even turned the shower on, and presumed that baby had been pushing on my bladder- I hoped she wouldn't make a habit of it. She was pushing even harder than usual this morning, and my stomach was churning unpleasantly, though I put it down to morning sickness, even though Snape's potion had been working fine up until then. I took another dose and put it down to my due date coming soon.

Things quickly got worse and worse throughout the day, however, and I could no longer mute it with my potion. Suddenly, in Transfigurations, I felt something that scared the life out of me. 

A contraction. 

I sat there in growing agony, thinking madly. This had to be a phantom one, right? I wasn't due for another ten days! Come on, Hermione, how do you test if it's a phantom? You eat something, and it goes away.

"Ron?" I whispered, a hand on my stomach to try and calm her down. "Ron, have you got any chocolate? Or anything to eat?"

"Er, yeah, I've got a chocolate frog-" he rummaged around in the bottom of his bag and brought out a familiar blue wrapper, and handed it to me. But I must have taken too long to unwrap it- it hopped straight out my hands and onto the floor, where I couldn't reach it due to my big bump.

Cursing, I thought about calling over McGonagall, but the lesson ended before I could raise my hand. As I waddled down to Snape's class, I realised that something was very, very wrong with my body, and I started to seriously doubt it was Braxton Hicks. I grabbed hold of Ron's arm and had him lead me, while I sweated profusely, wondering what the magical equivalent of 999 was. I didn't think these were Phantom contractions.