A few hours later, after the last class of the day and after Ginny had been sentenced to clean toilets with Mr. Filch all weekend, Harry, Hermione, Remus and Sirius met in the entryway of the castle, and walked down to the apparation point just outside the school's wards, and apparated to St. Mungo's Hospital.
After telling the welcome witch their reason for being there, and getting the customary directions and "have a nice day," from the witch, they headed up to the maternity ward, where Hermione would see her healer.
They entered the bright, cheery waiting room and Hermione went to the desk to sign in.
After waiting a few minutes, a nurse came and took Hermione and Harry back to an examination room. The nurse used her wand to transfigure Hermione's clothes into a gown, then took her weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, measured her stomach, and had her sit down on the exam table.
"The healer will be in to see you shortly." The nurse said as she left the room, putting Hermione's file in the little box beside the door.
"I'm nervous," Hermione admitted.
"Nervous? Why?" Harry asked.
"Just worried about the babies, and finding out their genders just makes it a little more real, you know? I mean, obviously it's real, my pants don't fit," she said with a laugh. "But now we can pick out furniture and bedding, clothes, toys, books, names. We can pick out everything for them, and we'll be seeing it every day, until they come, and then they'll be seeing it every day. Goodness I hope we do everything right."
Harry listened as his nervous girlfriend rambled, nodding his head at the appropriate times and doing his best to pay attention as she continued to talk about how she hoped they did right by the children and then began to talk about how much they needed to read to them and play with them.
The doctor chose that moment to finally come into their room, interrupting Hermione's nervous rambling and saving Harry's sanity.
"Good evening. I'm Healer Davis." The older man said, shaking Harry's and Hermione's hand.
"I'll be taking care of you through out the rest of your pregnancy, and for a few weeks after the baby is born, if that's alright with you. If at any time you're not satisfied with my care, please let me know and I can try to make it better, or you can chose another Healer from our department." The healer continued, looking at Hermione and then Harry to make sure they were both paying attention. When they both nodded, he continued.
"Your weight is just fine, your blood sugar and blood pressure are both excellent and you're measuring right on schedule. Now we need to do the scan to see how the little ones are doing."
The doctor pulled his wand out of a holster on his left forearm and had Hermione lay back on the table. He weaved an intricate spell across her swollen abdomen and a small ball of light began to glow above it. As he continued to weave the spell, the ball of light got bigger and bigger until both babies could be seen quite clearly in the little bubble.
Once both babies were clear to them, he stopped doing the spell and began doing measurements on the babies. He finished up and said, "Both children looks amazingly perfect. They're about the same size, I would estimate 14 ounces for Baby A and 13 ounces for Baby B."
Harry squeezed Hermione's hand and they both smiled. "So they're both doing good?" Harry asked, just to be sure.
"Both of them are perfect. From what I can see they both have 10 fingers and 10 toes and everything is developing properly." The healer confirmed.
"And?" Hermione asked, eager to know who had correctly predicted the gender.
"What do you mean?" The healer said, pretending innocence.
"Are they boys or girls?" Hermione said, exasperated.
The healer laughed. "Sorry guys, I have to make sure you actually want to know the gender. Plenty of people get angry if you tell them the gender when they didn't want to know."
Healer Davis took his wand and drew two circles on the picture that was still floating above Hermione's abdomen.
"If you look right here," he said, pointing to the first circle, "Baby A is a boy, and if you look right here," he pointed to the second circle, "It's pretty obvious that Baby B is a girl."
Hermione began to laugh, "I guess we were both right and wrong,"
Harry grinned. "I don't care if they're boys or girls or what. I'm just glad they're healthy."
"I thought it was two girls, and Harry thought it was two boys," Hermione explained to the healer.
"Well then I think you were both right, you've got one of each. Congratulations Ms. Granger, Mr. Black. Do you have any questions?"
"I don't," Harry said. "Do you, 'Mione?"
"No, I think I'm very happy with our appointment today. I'm ready to go home and get something to eat," she said with a little laugh. "These two make me feel like I'm eating for an army, not just the three of us."
The healer laughed, "You're right in the stage for crazy cravings. Have fun with that Mr. Black."
With that warning, he waved his wand over Hermione's abdomen again, first printing magical pictures of the babies for the couple, then vanishing the bubble and turning Hermione's gown back into her regular robes.
"Ready to go get you some clothes that fit?" Harry asked.
"Uggghhhh." She groaned. "I hate shopping."
"I know love, but Molly and Fleur are going to take you around town and get you everything you'll need in this one trip, so that you don't have to do it again until we're ready to shop for baby clothes." Harry comforted her.
"I know, and I'm really grateful that they are, I just want to go eat and go home." Hermione said as they walked out the door to meet Remus and Sirius.
As soon as they stepped into the waiting room, they were face to face with Sirius "Well? What are you having?"
Harry laughed. "You'll have to wait until the announcement that we're making at dinner, after Hermione does her clothes shopping."
"But I'm the Grandpaaaaa," Sirius fake whined.
Remus punched his fiance playfully in the shoulder and said "Yes, old man, you're one of the Grandpas, but the kids want to wait to tell us, so we'll wait."
Hermione smiled at Remus and they all headed downstairs. Molly and Fleur would be meeting them at The Leaky Cauldron, where they would do their shopping in both muggle London, and a bit in Diagon Alley. Muggles really did have more comfortable maternity wear than wizards.
When they got to The Leaky Cauldron, Molly and Fleur were no where to be seen, so Harry ordered tea and biscuits for everyone, so that they could have a bit of a snack before Hermione went off shopping with the girls, and he, Remus and Sirius went off on a little shopping trip of their own.