Chapter Six

Four long, uneventful months had passed and the novelty of pregnancy was wearing off. Sixteen weeks in and she barely showed - but that wouldn't be for long. It was time that she spilled the news.

It was strange, but she was vaguely hoping that the whole affair would just end. She didn't particularly want a miscarriage, but if it happened the sadness she'd feel would be fleeting. After all, she reasoned, was Draco really the man she wanted to raise her children with? Of course not.

For one thing, there was zero chance that he would marry her, which was probably for the best. She certainly didn't want to be married to Draco Malfoy. She could just see their wedding day: He in black, looking more prepared for a funeral than a wedding, she in an unbecoming white gown that ballooned around her beach ball of a stomach. She would go into labor during the vows, her water would break and stain her dress, and he would grimace and leave as quietly as he could. Three weeks later, they'd file for divorce. What a happy couple!

No, she would stay single, and he would visit when it suited him. The baby would have a father and she would have as little to do with Draco as possible. That's what was best.

It made her sad that Harry hadn't been more understanding and open-minded when he'd been told the news, but it didn't surprise her. And Draco, naturally, had been entirely devastated. Never mind that she'd given him the best advice she possibly could regarding the situation, and she knew that advice had included the phrase, "Don't make him feel like it's a set-up." Naturally, Draco'd done exactly the opposite of what she'd told him to do.

Hermione sighed. Her child's father was a handful, that was for sure, and without Harry to take some of the weight off her shoulders he was starting to crush her. He visited on an almost-daily basis, venting his frustrations with poverty, with muggles, with the press, with the Wizarding world in general, with Harry, with everything he came in contact with. He had problems when his programs were interrupted by news bulletins. He had problems when the take-out he ordered wasn't quite right. The man just had problems.

And now, he was her problem. What was she going to do with him?

The easy answer was to get him back together with Harry. They clearly were miserable without each other. Hermione was getting suspicious that they were watching each other's schedules. When one wasn't visiting her, the other was - the only difference was that Harry never talked at all, and Draco talked far too much.

Her budding fetus was starting to give her the faintest of butterfly kicks. She was beginning to suspect that it was agitated when its father was agitated, because whenever it got to doing little fetus backflips and whatnot, Draco usually wasn't very far away. And this time, of course, was no exception.

He came in like a whirlwind, his hair flying around his head in an unnaturally gorgeous configuration for someone so chaotic. "Hermione!" he exclaimed, as though he were surprised to see her in her own home.

"Draco, you really should get in the habit of knocking," she said, getting up from her cross-legged position on the floor - the position she usually adopted when deep thought was in order.

Draco waved his hand dismissively and barged right into his purpose, "I think we should get married." He looked at her with a bright, hopeful smile and happy, expressive eyes. "What do you think? Will you marry me?"

"I - what?" she demanded, completely flabbergasted and lost for words.

"It's a very simple question, really. And obviously it's the right thing to do. I think our parents would be very proud of us for getting married."

She blinked once, twice, thrice, and pressed a hand against his forehead. "Are you feeling okay? Do you seriously think that your parents would approve of you marrying a mudblood who's carrying an illegitimate child?"

"Well, it's my illegitimate child. I'm sure they'll be fine with it."

"What's the matter with you?" Hermione was deeply perplexed and starting to worry for his sanity. "One minute you're telling me to get an abortion and the next you want to marry me? What the hell happened?"

"Nothing! I've just been doing a lot of thinking. It's no fair for this child to go through life without married parents. That's no way to live. So, really, will you do it? Because, see, I've already had the paperwork drawn up and all I really need from you is one little signature and your agreement to show up tomorrow at noon. Will you?"

"Just stop! Hold up! Let's back this up a little bit. Why don't you start at the part where you decided that you weren't gay, after all, that you didn't love Harry, and that you were willing to marry someone like me?"

He pursed his lips as though on the verge of some deep and philosophical reasoning, and then simply said, "Because."

"Because?"

Draco sighed. "Because, I want to be a good father. And good fathers marry the mothers of their children, don't they? I mean, we don't necessarily have to be happy together, do we? If we just give the baby what it needs - a mother and a father who haven't parted ways - then everything will be fine. When it turns seventeen, we'll part ways and just consider it a sacrafice worth making. Then I go off on my merry way and you can devote the rest of your life to bettering Wizard kind like you so desperately want to. No harm done."

Finally, it clicked into place for her, and what she now understood made her heart melt just a little. "Oh, Draco, sweetheart, we don't have to get married to give our child a good life." She placed an arm around his shoulders. "What we need is very simple, really."

"What is it, then? What makes a child happy? I mean, I had plenty of things to worry about when I was young but never once did I worry about my parents. I'd hate to force that kind of thing onto my own." He sighed and leaned into her a little, the adrenaline rush wearing off and the reality of what he'd proposed sinking in. "I was never happy. I'm still not happy." Draco looked at Hermione and asked, "Are you happy?"

She thought about it for a minute before answering, molding her response and tasting the words in her mouth as she said them, "Yes. I am happy. But happiness isn't about being joyful all the time." She paused, reaching for the words. "Happiness is about being able to recognize the times when life is good and acknowledging the times that it isn't without dwelling on them. Enjoying the simple things in life and all that."

They sat down and she propped her feet in his lap. "And to answer your question, I think that married parents don't matter to a child who never had married parents to start with. I think it matters more to child who winds up the victim of a divorce. I think that what makes a child truly happy is simply to feel loved."

"Do you really think that's all there is to it? I mean, there's an entire industry related to bringing children the best of this and the best of that and the latest in nutrition and fitness and learning the alphabet before they're one and everything. Does any of that matter?"

"Not in the least. That's all for the parents. You can't buy someone's love. Even a baby can see right through that."

"Okay, then, Miss Know-it-all, do you think our child will know that it was an unwanted result of an unwanted one night stand?"

Hermione shook her head. "What makes you think the baby is unwanted? Now that we have her, don't you want her?"

"Of course I do."

"Okay, then. Let it go. Enjoy the ride." She leaned her head back against the couch and felt the baby moving, feeling the life that would soon be hers coming closer with every second.