Delicate - eng version

A Spot Of Discomfort

"Mum, is it really as sore as they say, having a baby?" I asked my mother. We had just been to see baby Lucy in the hospital, and Auntie Audrey looked as if someone had hit her over the head with a greasy frying pan while performing the Cruciatus Curse on her.

"No," said Mum flatly, "It's worse."

"She's exaggerating," Dad assured me.

"Excuse me!" Mum rounded on Dad, her eyes now bulging, "When you have pushed two watermelons out of your you-know-what then you can say I'm exaggerating!!"

"I don't have a you-know-what..."

Dad never did know when to shut up.

"EXACTLY! Rose, when I was eighteen years old, I was tortured under the Cruciatus Curse by Bellatrix Lestrange, and I can safely say that it was like a day in a beauty spa compared to labour! You'll know someday when you're older..."

I keep having this same recurring nightmare of a conversation I had with my Mum when I was around five or six. Ever since I came home from Hogwarts – a whole two days ago – I keep thinking I'm going to go into labour any minute, even though I still have two weeks until my due date. These nightmares aren't even the worst of them. Last night I dreamt that I accidentally left my baby on top of the Hogwarts Express and then it started moving, but Scorpius caught the baby just before it fell off. This leads me to think that Scorpius is going to be a better parent than me. The worst nightmare I've had so far is where I go into labour, the Healer tells me to push and then starts screaming like a madman that it's an antichrist! It's not a baby at all!

So now I've stopped sleeping.

Scorpius is at home in Scotland at the minute. He'll be coming to stay here next week, just in case the baby comes early, or just in case I need anything. He's a good friend, that Scorpius. I wonder how I'll break it to him if this kid is the antichrist – maybe I'll just leave it on top of a train if that's the case.

I've been reading up on stuff like this, actually. Apparently there was this woman who abandoned her baby in a park, but she wasn't charged for it because of postpartum depression. Another lady actually transfigured her child into a goat, and again she wasn't sent to Azkaban.

"Hello!" Aunt Ginny's voice echoes around the empty house. Mum and Dad are at work, so I generally get around thirty thousand visitors a day checking up on me. Even Hugo checks in from time to time, taking time out from his busy schedule of doing nothing.

"In the living room!" I call and Ginny bustles in with a basket of fruit and muffins. She's such a Nana Molly.

"How are you feeling? Are you comfortable? Do you want anything?" She starts fluffing the cushions behind my back and then summons me a glass of water. It's literally been ten minutes since Uncle Harry was here doing the same thing. These people really worry too much.

"I'm fine," I say, "Look at this – a woman almost murdered her two year old son with the Avada Kedavra curse, but was not sentenced due to a case of postpartum depression. Two years later!"

"D'you think you'd still get off eighteen years later?" Ginny asks, "James is driving me up the wall with this new Quidditch contract. All of a sudden it's as if his NEWTs don't matter! He doesn't even care about the results!"

This probably isn't the best time to tell her that he studied for all of his exams the night before. Yes, she's definitely better off not knowing.

"Ginny, what if I get postpartum depression?" I whisper fearfully, "It says here that up to 25% of women suffer from it."

Ginny looks at me sympathetically. "Love, it's possible," she says, "But if it happens, we're all going to be here to help you through it. And there's a 75% chance you won't get it, isn't there? Look on the bright side."