What are we going to do?

Chapter 1

I twist in the sheets, rolling onto my side in the fetal position, gritting my teeth, and squeezing my eyes shut as another wave of pain starts in my back and washes through my belly.  This one lasts longer than the last, bringing tears to my eyes as I try not to call out or wake the other girls in the room.  As the pain subsides, I take the breath that I didn't realize I was holding.  "What's happening to me?" I wonder thinking back over the day.  The pain had started in my back while listening to Professor Binns drone on about goblin rebellions.  At first it was hardly anything; if I hadn't been bored out of my mind, I might not have even realized it, but by the time I got to Herbology, my last class of the day, it was all I could do to stand there and act normal each time the pain washed over me.  After Herbology, I skipped dinner, and had been lying here ever since, the pains getting even worse and the waves closer together.

Another shooting pain hits me, and I have to fight to keep from calling out.  I shove my fist in my hand and bite down on my knuckles, while grabbing the sheets with my other hand as if they were my only lifeline.  Once it passes, I decide that something really is wrong and I can't just continue to lie here.  I get up, touching my feet to the cold ground.  Grabbing my wand from the bedside table, I shuffle my way out of the room still conscious not to wake my sleeping dorm mates.  I pad my way to and down the staircase that leads to the common room.  At the bottom of the stairs, I look around, my eyes falling upon the sleeping figure on the sofa near the fireplace.  "Thank Merlin Professor McGonagall has taken to sleeping in here" I think to myself, remembering how she tried to convince us all that it was due to her rooms being renovated when we all knew there was no renovation; because we all knew that it was because Hogwarts was no longer safe with Snape as Headmaster and the Carrows teaching and we all knew that she stayed with us because it was the very last thing she could do to protect us.

I make it halfway across the room before the pains hit me again.  I double over, gripping the back of a chair, panting and not bothering to stifle my cries.  Professor McGonagall flies awake at the sound of my first cry, jumping up, and pointing her wand at me ready for action.  Recognition floods her face followed immediately by concern.

"Ginny, what's wrong?" she asks, crossing the room to me and putting a hand on my shoulder.

"I don't... know," I cry, really breaking down now.  "This pain... started... History of Magic... only gotten worse since!"

"Ssh," McGonagall sooths, wrapping her arm around me.  "Let's get you lying down," she says, helping me over to the couch that she previously occupied.

I settle on the couch, waiting for the pain to stop, watching as Professor McGonagall hurriedly relights the fireplace and then quietly instruct one of the portraits to do something.  As the pain subsides, I catch my breath and lay my head back on the arm of the couch.  Professor McGonagall produces a cool rag and places it on my forehead. 

"I called Madam Pomfrey, dear.  Can you tell me what you're experiencing?"

"It's this pain… in my back and in my belly.  It comes and goes, but each time it gets a bit worse and the pains get a little closer together.  I don't know what's causing it...  I'm scared," I squeak out just as Madam Pomfrey bustles through the portrait. 

“What’s going on?  What’s wrong?” Madam Pomfrey asks, crossing the common room to where I lay.

“Miss Weasley says that she has been experiencing increasing back and abdominal pain that comes in waves that are also increasingly close together,” McGonagall answers for me. 

I notice her and Madam Pomfrey share a look.  “This can’t be good,” I think to myself as I start to panic.

Madam Pomfrey closes her eyes for a quick beat and gives McGonagall a short nod before turning to me.  “Ginny, when did you have your last menstrual cycle?”

“I… I… I don’t know.  I’m irregular.”

“Ginny, have you been sexually active in the last approximately nine months?”

“What?  Why… why are you asking… why are you asking if I’ve had… had sex?” I manage looking from Professor McGonagall to Madam Pomfrey.  Suddenly it dawns on me just as another pain wracks my body.