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Hermione stared up at the ceiling as she lay on her bed, her hands resting on her ever growing bump. She needed to convince herself that it was time to get up, but she was now rather pregnant and funding the motivation to do anything at all was starting to become tricky. She still had a few weeks to go before the baby was due, and both Fleur and Molly had told her that because it was her first baby she was likely to be overdue. She liked to think that they knew what they were talking about, considering the fact that they had both carried Weasley children themselves, but on days like this she wished that these next few weeks would hurry up and pass her by.
It wasn't that she wasn't enjoying her pregnancy. There were times when she truly thought that it was the most magical experience of her life, but she was at the point where she hadn't managed to sleep for a few days and now Fred was pretty much refusing to sleep in the same bed as her because she was tossing and turning so much that he wasn't managing to get any sleep either. George let her sleep in his bed still, but it felt strange not to be alternating with him or sharing a bed with the both of them.
"Hermione?" A soft voice called from the doorway and she turned her head towards Neville who was stood there rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "You doing okay?"
Hermione paused for a moment before she pushed herself up into a sitting position and patted the bed next to her, inviting him inside. "I'm just… feeling…" She waved her hands vaguely. Hermione knew a lot of words but she didn't know the one that would sum up the way that she was feeling now, or if that was at all possible.
"The pint pot still driving you up the wall, then?" He chuckled as he made his way over and immediately wrapped his arm around her shoulders, letting her lean against him.
"You can say that again. Not even here yet and already keeping me up." She sighed softly, watching as Neville's free hand moved to her bump. "You guys are so lucky that you don't have to go through all of this."
"Hey.. A few weeks time and you'll be able to sleep as much as you need to. Our baby will have four other parents that it can keep up all night and you'll be able to rest."
"Honestly I can't wait." Hermione laughed at that. She was grateful that she had so much support, not only from her boyfriends but from Ron and Neville, not to mention the rest of their family. She just had to get through the hard part on her own first.
"Well, if you want to veg out in bed for the next few weeks then I totally support that." Neville told her as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"Will you tell Kingsley that, please? I still have two weeks of work to get through." For the first time that she could ever remember she wasn't excited about going to work and she realised that was probably a sign that she needed to stop working and just focus on the baby.
"If I wasn't petrified of him, I totally would." Neville laughed, and though Hermione knew that he was serious about not being able to tell Kingsley that she needed to start her maternity leave early, she was serious about talking to her boss. There was no way that she could work when she hadn't been sleeping anyway so she would have to call in sick tomorrow unless a miracle happened and she fell asleep in the next few minutes.
"Help me up?" She asked after a few minutes. She was hungry again, not that that was a surprise at all, but she was trying not to allow herself to continually snack. "Do you know who's cooking tonight?"
Neville got up off of the bed and extended a hand to Hermione to help her up. She was pretty sure that she couldn't possibly get any bigger, but each day seemed to prove her wrong. "Ron said something about chicken. Apparently he knows someone who has been craving chicken nuggets lately." He was teasing her but she didn't care. As she had pointed out on more than one occasion, it was the baby that wanted the chicken. Before getting pregnant, she wasn't really into eating meats and now she couldn't seem to get enough.
"That explains why he's not currently glued to your hip then, huh?" She teased, though she knew that they weren't inseparable. Ron had been spending a lot of time at work lately and Neville had all but lost himself in his research. Hermione couldn't help but admire the work ethic that they had both developed over the years, especially when hers seemed to be circling the drain as of late.
"I could just leave you here, you know?" Neville pointed out, an eyebrow raised though he was helping her to her feet already. "I’m under no obligation to help you, you know.” He was laughing softly which caused Hermione’s cheeks to flush pink. She was not at all able to control her emotions lately, which the others seemed to take delight in teasing her about. “Look at your cheeks.”
“Oh, shut up.” She muttered, giving his shoulder a gentle push before the pair of them headed off down the stairs. She tried to ignore how Neville was glancing over his shoulder at her every few steps. She knew that he was just trying to keep an on her, but she hated the way that four men in her life seemed to think that she was now a porcelain doll.
“There she is!” Fred’s voice greeted her as she arrived in the hallway. He was taking his jacket off, a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Hello to you too.” She lifted an eyebrow just before his arms were wrapped around her and his lips were on her temple. “Missed me or something?”
“I always miss you, love.” He said softly before he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and pulled away again. “But I also really wanted to show you what I got for us today.” He said before he picked a bag up off the floor and past it to her.
“What you got us..?” She asked slowly, frowning a little as she took the bag. She wanted to know what he was up to, but at the same time she didn’t think that now was the best time for gifts, not when they were meant to be preparing for the baby’s arrival.
Inside the bag she found something that certainly wasn’t essential, or at least she didn’t see how it could possibly be essential. She wanted to tell Fred off, but the smile on his face melted all of her annoyance away in seconds, as it always did. She knew that he was just trying to make the distance that her pregnancy had created just that little bit smaller after all.
That didn’t change the fact that he had bought her a hat that she had only ever seen on American muggle TV shows. It was essentially a bulder’s hat with a holder for a bottle of some sort either side and the longest straws that Hermione had ever seen.
“And what’s this..?”
“Well, I know how difficult you’re finding it to get up and down the stairs now, so I thought this would help with the whole keeping hydrated situation.”
Hermione contemplated throwing the hat at him in that moment and only decided against it because she heard Ron calling them through for dinner. “You’re not funny at all. You know that right?”
Fred grinned and stole a kiss before he placed the hat on top of her head. “I’ll have you know that most people find me hilarious.”
Hermione rolled her eyes, but she had to admit that it was quite an entertaining gift idea and it had at least momentarily distracted him from the fact that she was uncomfortable and from being hurt that he hadn’t been sleeping in the same bed. She shook her head fondly before lifting the hat off her head and hanging it on one of the coat pegs. “Moderately.” She told him as they both headed through to the kitchen.