Invitation Only ~ Fred Weasley

FIFTYSEVEN

A pair of faint voices sounded like murmur in her ears, when Viola woke up. She was in a soft bed and she could hear the rumbling of many other people outside her door. The pain was not gone, but it was not as excruciating as before.

"I prefer to speak to her when she wakes up, Mr. Weasley." A soft female voice spoke somewhere a few metres away.

"She's my girlfriend! I want to know what that beast did to her!"

"Mr. Weasley, please calm down, or I'll have you removed from this room."

"Fred?" Viola called out faintly and completely exhausted. Both fell silent and Viola opened her eyes to see Fred rushing to her side. He looked terrible.

"Vi? Are you okay? How are you feeling?" He asked with worry filling his words.

"In pain. What happened?" Viola asked and made a grimace when she tried to move to see who else was in the room. She saw a young healer standing behind Fred with a pained look on her face. "Where's George?"

"He's outside, he's talking to mum and Bill." Fred answered and his hand found her forehead and began stroking her hair back.

"Miss Black? Are you feeling all right to talk about what happened?" The healer asked and she stepped over to the foot of Viola's bed. Viola followed her with her eyes and she didn't like the expression the healer had. She nodded slowly.

"You were struck by the cruciatus curse right in your abdomen, and I'm so sorry, miss Black... But I'm afraid that you suffered a miscarriage during the attack."

Viola blinked and looked at the healer with confusion. Fred's head turned as well to look at the healer.

"Miscarriage? You must be mistaken, I'm not pregnant." Viola said, but the healer only looked even more saddened.

"I'm afraid you were pregnant, Miss Black. About 10 weeks." The healer responded with caution and sadness in her voice.

Viola felt her entire body grow cold and Fred's hand suddenly felt like a gross cloth on her forehead. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the healer, who still showed immense regret and sadness over Viola's and Fred's apparent loss.

"I was... I was really pregnant?" Viola asked almost in a whisper, her voice slightly cracking.

"You were. And I can't even begin to explain how sorry I am for your loss - if you find the need of someone to talk to, we have a special squad here at St. Mungos that deals with cases like these." The healer said and bowed her head. "I'll give you some privacy." And then she slowly walked out of the room.

Neither Fred and Viola said a word. Viola's eyes went up into the ceiling and all of a sudden, it made sense. Her being so uncomfortable for weeks, her sudden and immense jealousy, the way she cried when Fred did so little to cheer her up... And the bleeding when her and Fred had had sex. It wasn't her period after all.

Without even knowing, Viola had been carrying Fred's child around for 10 weeks, his legacy. Their legacy. And just like that - it was gone.

How could she not have known? It must have happened some time soon after the battle of Hogwarts... Maybe even that day?

She couldn't comprehend it. Fred removed his hand from her forehead and his face went down to look at his knees. It was like they didn't even know how to speak to each other that moment.

She had lost it... The realisation began slowly to become more and more clear and real. And then she felt something new. She felt guilty and cheated.

Viola felt how she had been carrying around precious cargo and with her own carelessness, she had herself put herself in a situation that resulted in her losing that cargo. The stinging feeling behind her eyes became more violent, and she couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks as she closed her eyes.