Shades of Gray
Reworked from The Gray of Morning
Begun May 2010, Resumed September 2011
HermionexDraco
Inwardly, she knew this was coming, sooner or later.
"I.. have a reputation to uphold. You understand."
Whether or not she wished to believe it, however, was a different story.
"Granger? Are... are you listening?"
She was, of course. How could she not, when the world she knew was falling around her?
"I am sorry it had to end this way. But... you couldn't have thought it would work out, right?"
Maybe she'd been deluding herself the entire time. Maybe he wasn't a change man. Maybe Harry and Ron were right after all.
"I suppose I should leave now."
No, she wanted to say, you suppose incorrectly. You should stay here and tell me this is all fallacy, a cruel lie designed to instigate an argument.
"If you need anything... well, I shouldn't say that. I cannot have the reporters discovering we were ever, ahem... involved."
He staggered over the word. He did not want to admit it. She found herself shaking.
"I... am so sorry it came to this. You must know that."
She did not speak. Her dark brown eyes remained carefully trained on the ground as she wound her fingers through the white linen napkins of her favorite restaurant. This was not what she came here for. This was not the plan.
"I suppose I should leave now. Do you need assistance returning home?"
He expected an answer from her.
"Hermione?"
His voice was softer this time. Familiar, even. There was love underneath his words, compassion she knew rested somewhere within the cold shell of the man she loved. For the first time in several minutes, Hermione spoke. "I'm fine, thank you."
Draco looked almost relieved to hear her voice, but the brief flicker of emotion disappeared before it could really register with the brunette. "Good, then. I will be seeing you, then."
With that, Draco turned around and strode away from the table into the crowds of their favorite Parisian restaurant. It was easier to travel out of the country when the pair wished to be together. There were fewer people to gawk, fewer lies to tell, fewer hearts to break.
Except hers, it appeared.
Instinctively, her hand travelled to her abdomen. It had become almost a habit for her to check and make sure her stomach was there, her beacon of hope and light in a world she thought would never be normal. A child of Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger would never be normal, at least not by Wizarding society standards, but it was, nonetheless, what Hermione was meant to do. She brought him to this place for just that purpose. She would tell him she was pregnant, and he would be overjoyed. In retrospect, Hermione knew she was being idealistic. Despite his softened demeanor, Draco remained a product of bigotry: He could not so easily shed the ingrained belief in blood purity. Perhaps he would have left her for that sole reason once she told him if he had not been planning to leave already.
Perhaps, even, he knew already. He had not given her a straight and direct answer as to why he was leaving her, aside from his reputation. In a way, Hermione accepted that as truth without much thought to ulterior motives. It never made sense to her, their attraction. At the very least, not the attraction on his end. She was painfully ordinary with the one exception of her obnoxiously bushy hair. And, oh! he was handsome. Steel gray eyes and a smile designed for dentist ads. Her parents would have loved him.
Would have.
The phrase resonated in her head, bringing with it a wave of stabbing pain Hermione was sure would continue.
They were barely together for six months. Six beautiful, terrible, painful months in which the nineteen year old discovered more about herself than she ever thought she would. Harry and Ron refused to return to Hogwarts - too many memories, they said - and so she walked through the front doors and into a wall of memory entirely alone. It had surprised her to see Draco Malfoy there, appearing equally lost and greatly humbled by the consequences of the War. Students moved around the two older students with a kind of fear and awe Hermione hated, though she knew it was worse for Draco. He was given reprieve in exchange for monetary compensation; after all, it was impossible to truly remove corruption from the Ministry of Magic. But there was another clause in his settlement that shocked the newspapers: he was to return to Hogwarts and complete his education, after which he would be required to spend a year in Africa to work among impoverished Muggles. Hermione envied his obligatory service year, an idiosyncrasy Draco failed to ever comprehend.
She smiled bitterly he recalled the disputes they had about his work. He hated it, failed to see the point of living as a poor Muggle, and Hermione desperately wanted to go with him. But there was something about being a war hero, the girl-who-helped-Harry-Potter-find-the-Horcruxes-and-therefore-kill-Voldemort, which gave the Ministry complete control over her travel plans. Hermione would stay in Continental Europe or the United Kingdom unless accompanied by an armed Auror at all times. It seemed to her that, despite her clear magical and intellectual prowess, she was reduced to the same legal standing as an insolent ward of the state.
But now, what could she do? There was a child growing within her, a child with blood Malfoy and blood Granger. A child who would be born into a circus of media attention. A child who would never have a chance at a normal life.
With great deliberation and self control, Hermione lifted herself from the seat and, as though in a trance, wove through the Parisian crowds. Casual conversations floated around her and she translated without thinking, a welcome relief from the mental reeling she was currently experiencing. She felt alone, though, and vulnerable in the crowds. Through her wand rested on her hip and she was more than capable of magical battle, Hermione did not like to be alone in a crowded room. Any bang, any flash, any sudden movement sent her heart racing. It was unfair, she mused, to bring a child into the world with a mother who would tremble at the sounds of his cries. Tears and grief were something Hermione learned to avoid at all costs in the weeks after the final Battle. She could not take the sadness anymore, the misery that permeated her world. There was a constant shade of grey surrounding everything, a grey she would have once considered beautiful in the morning after a rainstorm. It was the soft grey of his eyes, with the same sadness Draco possessed...
She would not think about him. Those six months were nothing, nothing; she was stronger than this. She would survive and she would raise this child. She would bring him into a world where he did not know his father because his father was not worth knowing.
Because, in the end, Draco Malfoy was not worth it. He was self centered and cared far too much about his reputation. He was smarmy and overly intellectual with a dash of self confidence that was almost unnerving. Even after the war, with his family struck down from their place on Mount Olympus, he was still Draco Malfoy: haughty, demeaning, snide, and downright rude at times. But he was also passionate, gentle sometimes, and capable of great wit. He was one of Hermione's few intellectual peers, and he was able to carry on a decent conversation for more than a few minutes. He challenged her, criticized her, told her when she was wrong. But sometimes he called her beautiful as he explored her in the soft glow of candlelight, held her so gently it nearly made her cry, comforted her when the nightmares grew too realistic to overcome. He understood, she knew, what it was like to live with terror. Every day, every waking moment for his seventh year he lived with terror. That was why he had to return to Hogwarts; unlike Hermione, he attended his seventh year. But his grades were horrific, and the staff of Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic knew he was smarter than his sudden decline. It would only be fair, they concluded, to give Draco a rare opportunity for rehabilitation.
No. She was not to think of him.
Under the starry sky, Hermione felt clarity return. This was a problem and she would solve it in the most logical fashion. Abortion was not an option: she was already too attached to the child within her. Telling Draco was clearly out of the picture. Ron and Harry never knew about her relationship with him, and it was not in either of their natures to be forgiving to former Death Eaters. Although her child would not be a Death Eater, his blood would be thick with inherited expectations that society would see in place of an innocent child.
Exactly seven months and twelve days later, Ashton Charles Granger was born, already wise with the grey eyes of morning.
One Year, Four Months, 9 Days Later
The door was mocking her, and she knew it.
She could almost hear its ghostly laughter as she pondered the decisions that brought her to that moment in time, that particular destiny that nobody thought she'd ever follow. Oh, it had certainly started off innocently enough, but now she stood, caught between two words, two friendships, two loves, and the many different threads of one lie.
Sometimes she wondered what everything would have been like if she knew the truth from the beginning. Further back, she wondered what everything would have been like had that horrible Fiendfyre never happened. Perhaps Voldemort would have won the war, and her life would be one of a fugitive from the new regime's so-called justice. Her best friends wouldn't be alive. Ron would have followed Harry into the light; as much as she loved her two best friends, she never quite fit into their puzzle. She was just the third.
The door was silenced for a reason, and she hated to imagine the screams that must be echoing behind it. Screams of man and child, two white blonde faces with identical eyes screwed up in some terrible pain wrought by a madman. Since she was eleven, she was led by two men, and now it was no different.
Really, there was no reason for her to be scared.
She'd faced plenty of mad men before.
Taking a deep breath, Hermione Granger raised the ivy wand and pointed it at the door.