Hey guys, sorry it's been a while. I'd planned on updating on the 28th because I graduate this Friday and I've been working in mom's daycare and haven't had time to work on any of my fanfictions and I wanted a while to work on them and find my muses again. However, lucky for you - and me - both of my moms other employee's were here today so I had free time and I found my muse rather quickly which never happens after long absences. So I plowed this out within two hours and edited it two times before my mind started skipping over a couple errors and I had my Dad edit it - never again will I let him look at my fanfictions because he started laughing at me for no reason... :(
So here's this chapter and have fun. Sorry it's not as long as the last.
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling hates Americans and I don't think I hate myself... hopefully.
By the end of that day's lessons, Hermione was miserable – and that was saying something after the ordeal her, Ron, and Harry had gone through the previous year. Not only was she bored out of her mind – the professors just recounted things learned in first through third year – but her stomach ached, her head hurt, and she just wanted to lie in bed with a book before passing out without even doing the homework that was due next week. And so, as soon as Hermione walked through the front door of her and Draco's home, she walked straight to the first floor bathroom and emptied the remains of that mornings omelet before grabbing three Ibuprofen and settling down on the greenish-grey loveseat.
An hour later when Draco finally came home after checking out his new office – which he'd decided was in terrible need of redecorating – he found her sound asleep, her face scrunched up with the remnants of pain and shivering.
"Merlin, Granger," he sighed before grabbing the folded blanket that lay on the back of the couch and throwing it over her. He looked at her for a moment as her shivering stopped before making his way towards the kitchen to start steeping more gingerroot tea and to make dinner.
"Mm," Hermione mumbled as she sat up nearly two hours later and stretched, showing a tiny bit of her stomach. She gave one last yawn before standing up. Blearily she made her way towards the stairs, noting that it was already dark outside before she smelled ginger and something she couldn't identify wafting from the kitchen. Her stomach growled as she changed course.
"Sleepy Head's finally awake, huh?" Draco smirked from where he was playing with a bowl of soup at the island.
She just ignored him and took her own bowl out of the cupboard after a few minutes of looking. Before she took some for herself however, she stole Draco's spoon – gaining an indignant growl – right before he put it in his mouth, tasting the strange concoction, and nodding to herself. Taking the spoon in the pan, she ladled herself a small helping of the creamy soup.
"The Gingerroot tea's in the pot," Draco said glaring at her as he went back to his soup after taking out a spoon for her from the drawer underneath his seat at the island. "There is a pain reliever in it. It'll be cold by now and have to be reheated."
"I prefer it cold," she smiled before digging in hungrily. "Thanks for the food."
He just huffed once more and turned his head back to the book of furniture that she hadn't seen before then. She also then noticed four highlighters next to him in blue, pink, red, and green.
After a few more minutes, she noticed that he was mumbling under his breath while working and there was a crease in between his eyebrows like her father got when he was concentrating heavily on something or was irritated… or both. Ten more minutes and he pushed his bowl away – finished – and moved the book closer and his head started inching closer to the pages until Hermione thought he was about to whip out a magnifying glass.
"You are keeping track of the costs, right?" she asked casually and his head snapped up to glare at her.
"No, of course not," he replied sarcastically. "I just have no idea how to manage money and am only doing this to waste every dime we've been allotted until we get my paycheck two weeks Thursday."
She just rolled her eyes at him and continued eating.
"Say Granger…"
"Hermione!"
"Okay, Hermione. What happened to the rest of the papers that were on the fridge? There should be one for our bank account(s) and other important documents."
"They're on the nightstand in my bedroom. Give me a moment to finish this and I'll go get them."
"Hurry it up then."
"Stop being rude," she said taking another sip of tea, purposely slowing down. After five minutes of this, his patience snapped and he stomped upstairs to get the documents himself. She could hear his bedroom door slam close and assumed that is was most definitely locked. "Selfish prick."
The next morning ended up being the same as the previous: Hermione woke up and vomited up dinner, Draco made gingerroot tea and left it on her nightstand, and then Draco made breakfast while Hermione got ready for the day – despite not having a class for another two and a half hours. Not feeling that hungry, Hermione just picked at the food while Draco continued to go through the furniture book, marking it up with the different colored highlighters – which now included the color yellow.
Overcome by her curiosity, Hermione finally asked what the different colored highlighters were for only to receive a glare from Draco.
"Oh, come off it," Hermione sighed exasperated. "I was only asking."
"Don't you have something better to do Gran-Hermione? Like homework that you want to finish a week before its due or knitting those horrible hats for the house elves in the castle?"
"Jackass."
"Oh my, did the ever so innocent Hermione Granger just curse. My, my… you're moving up in the world."
Fighting off the tears – damn hormones – she turned and slowly walked away so as not to give him any clues to her mental state. Once in her room, she grabbed her school bag and shoved in a sketch pad and an assortment of pencils before going back the way she came and leaving the house for Harry and Ginny's restaurant.
"He's nothing but a selfish prick and I'm about ready to buy a plaque and nail his head on it!" Hermione ranted while Ginny sat calmly finishing up the last of her Transfiguration homework.
"And this is new how?"
"Well for one if he treats his wife this way when he gets lucky enough for her to bear his spawn, she'll probably do worse than the plaque."
Ginny just sighed before rolling up her homework and putting it back in her bag. Turning to the ranting brunette she gathered what little patience she had left before speaking. "I honestly don't see how she'd do worse. He's actually being pretty decent for a ferret. He makes you breakfast and Gingerroot tea for your stomach. Yes, he's dominating the baby's bedroom, but he's going to let you see what he's picked out before he buys it. And he's just making sure you guys can afford everything.
"Harry's already decided on the names and hasn't let me even touch that baby book I found in the library yesterday. I love him to death, which is more than what you can say for Draco, but I have more reason to bolt his head on the wall but I don't want to. I understand Harry's need for family, though I'll probably crack down on him once this progress' farther, why don't you try to see why Draco's acting like this, hmm?"
"I guess you're right… But he's still an ass. I wanted to be mayor…"
"Is that what this is about?" Ginny snickered, raising a ginger eyebrow at her friend. "You're miffed because you're a stay-home mom while he gets to be the big bad mayor?"
Hermione just shrugged, her lips twitching. Ginny tried to hold it in – she really did try – but that one tiny shrug just pushed her over the edge.
When Harry wandered in a moment later, he walked right back out. "I don't want to know…"
Later that night when Hermione got home, Draco was nowhere to be found. Sighing, she made her way to the kitchen and started steeping more gingerroot tea for her stomach. Around lunchtime, she'd noticed that she'd started to show a little and had wondered if it was part of the potion. When she'd asked Gloria, she'd been told that some of the pregnancies would progress faster than others but would return to normal speed once it hit a certain point. What pissed Hermione off was the fact that the potion did it at random and Gloria had no clue how anyone's pregnancies would develop.
"No good professor," she muttered as she started searching the cupboards for peanut butter to put on the pickles she'd just snatched from the fridge. When she turned towards the island, she noticed that the furniture book was left open with the highlighters next to it and a note on top.
Picking up the note and reading the words 'don't even think about it', Hermione sighed again and retreated to the music room she'd found next to the nursery. As she sucked on a peanut butter coated pickle, she looked through all the scores of music on the shelves. She was thinking of teaching herself to play the piano so that she could play lullabies for the baby. Finding a couple basic piano books, she put down her pickles and picked up the books to look through them. It didn't look that hard.
When Draco returned that night from remodeling his office, he found Hermione in the music room playing basic scales on the baby grand. He stood in the hall a moment just listening before going back downstairs to work on the baby's furniture. He'd never be caught dead saying it and he would deny it fervently if anyone asked, but he thought that maybe, just maybe, Hermione would be a good mother for the little tyke.
The next morning, Draco woke up the sounds of crying in the room next to his. Looking at the clock, he realized he'd overslept and he should've already had Hermione's tea ready for her. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes before leaving his room to go see why the woman was crying.
That morning, Hermione had woken up happy as could be with no morning sickness whatsoever. That changed as soon as she got out of the shower and tried getting dressed; 'tried' being the key word. When she'd tried to get her shirt on, she found that her brand new t-shirt would not fit over her slightly swollen stomach and when she forced it, it hurt. She started trying on all of her other shirts that were looser; they didn't fit very well either.
That would've been fine – she could've just stolen one of Draco's shirts – if it hadn't been for the thrice damned hormones running through her body. No, instead of going about this like a rational person, Hermione broke down crying because she was now – in her mind – fat and therefore hideous.
And that is how Draco found her fifteen minutes later on the ground holding her favorite brown t-shirt on the ground wearing nothing but a slightly too small bra and a black skirt. Now, that ordinarily would've been okay as well but once she caught sight of Draco her mind jumped to the conclusion that it was all HIS fault and he needed to be horribly punished for it.
This is why, when Ginny showed up five minutes later, Draco was running out the door for his life with books flying out after him.
Once everything calmed down and Draco was nowhere to be found, Ginny led Hermione back inside. Said pregnant female was huffing and puffing in exertion all the while. When Ginny finally noticed Hermione's belly, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Holy Mother of Merlin! How the hell did you get that big?"
"Gloria left out details about the fucking potion," Hermione hissed.
"Damn, you look like that picture in the pregnancy book I found in the living room back at the apartment," Ginny said in wonder, holding a hand out towards the belly inquiring if she could touch. Hermione just grabbed the hand and put it on her stomach. "The picture was of a woman who was about five months, give or take one or two weeks."
"Well at least I'm halfway through then," Hermione sighed, calming down slightly as Ginny rubbed her belly. "Do you know if we're allowed to have Mme. Pomfry check us out at all? It would feel so much better at this point if she did."
"I agree," Ginny said. "If I'm going to go through with this I at least want to know that nothing goes wrong. We should track Gloria down later and ask. I'm sure all the other girls would like to know as well."
"I wonder how Pansy is taking this…" Hermione wondered, a scary grin creeping across her face.
"Probably horribly, just like Lavender and Pavarti," Ginny giggled. "They'd probably all have abortions just to keep their figures."
"Who did Lavender and Pavarti end up with?" Hermione wondered aloud.
"Lavender ended up with some Hufflepuff who I don't know and I think Pavarti ended up with like Neville or Dean… Not completely sure actually… wasn't paying all that much attention."
"Neither was I," Hermione laughed.
"C'mon, I came over here to invite you to breakfast with Harry and I," Ginny smiled affectionately as she gave Hermione's belly one last pat. "Since Draco decided to go to work early, he's not invited."
"Give me a moment, I need to steal one of his shirts since I outgrew all of mine overnight," Hermione told her before heading to Draco's room as fast as she could in her condition.
To say everyone was shocked when they saw Hermione that day was an understatement. Out of all her classmates, she was the farthest along in the pregnancy; even Gloria was surprised when Hermione and Ginny asked her if they could have Mme. Pomfry check on their pregnancies. She said that they could and that she wanted Hermione to go as soon as she got out of class since she shouldn't have been that far along already.
When Draco got home late that night, he found Hermione in the kitchen with the table set for two, absently rubbing her swollen stomach. Raising an eyebrow, he cautiously entered the kitchen.
Seeing Draco enter, Hermione gestured for him to sit down across from him before speaking. "I saw Mme. Pomfry during lunch today."
"Mm," he replied wearily as he sat down, eyeing her. "And?"
"Well, you might want to buy three cribs," she sighed.
"Huh?" his eyes bulged.
"There isn't just one bun in the oven, honey dearest," Hermione smirked at him. "There're three."
Next thing either of them knew, Draco had passed out, face in her spaghetti and meatballs on the plate in front of him.
Hermione just raised an eyebrow appreciatively. "Well that went better than expected…"
Okay, let me clarify some things for people who have a) never been around pregnant people or b) been around rather tame pregnant people... I've seen all the stuff I described about Hermione's mood swings, Morning sickness, and other stuff happen with pregnant people. Trust me, my mom was not a happy pregnant woman, neither were any of my cousins, other relatives, or my moms pregnant daycare clientele. I've seen many shades of pregnant people and I find it scary and humorous at the same time. I'm going to try to highlight the humorous portions and skip the scary because I prefer humor to horror.
Thanks for reading!
Mercy
Word Count: 2,453
