Penelope turned slightly, deftly avoiding letting Luna's camera catch her full face, and stroked Emily's soft hair. "Emily, I'll bring you back a gift when I return."
"Penelope, the United States invented a new kind of Exploding Bonbons a few months ago." Emily rubbed her finger against her chin and spoke in a soft, sweet voice, while tilting her head slightly toward Hermione and giving a tiny shake.
"They're much more powerful than Honeydukes' Exploding Bonbons. One little wizard ate several in one go, blew out his teeth, and choked to death... All right, Emily, but when you eat them, you absolutely have to take them one at a time... Hmm?" Penelope had been softening at Emily's request, then misunderstood Hermione's head shake at Emily. "Miss Know-it-all still hasn't gotten used to magic? Whether your teeth get blown out or corroded by sweets, isn't it just a spell or a bottle of Skele-Gro?" She planted her wand on the ground, tilted her head, and curled one corner of her mouth. "Pay a little attention during your exams. Otherwise, when I return in triumph and see that you failed to get an O in even one subject, I'm really going to laugh myself to death..."
Hermione said dryly, "Thank you... I'll be careful..."
Hermione not biting back with her usual sharp-tongued refusal to yield was beyond Penelope's expectations, and as an Auror, Penelope immediately realized something was wrong. She raised an eyebrow and asked in confusion, "What's wrong with you?"
As Emily shook her head more vigorously, and Luna's camera began pointing at them and clicking away, Hermione gave her head a shake and forced out a stammering sentence as though summoning courage. "Preg... pregnant..."
Before the somewhat guilty Hermione could finish, a burst of enthusiastic shouting erupted from Allen and