A/N: Oh look, another one. I can't say I'm really editing these that well, so sorry about that. I'm just trying to finish this thing while I still have the motivation.



Part 10

The same old faded orange walls surrounded her, suffocating her, as they did the past two weeks. Books lay open and abandoned in teetering piles, books she began to read then discarded, as her restlessness didn't allow her to finish. No matter how many Muggle novels she read about travels to far off lands, she could not ignore the firm fact that she was to be stuck in this room for another two months to come.

Sometimes the oppressive trapped feeling was enough for her to risk a walk to stretch her legs. She dared to once, reveling in the freedom for five bitterly short minutes before Molly caught her, earning her a frightful berating. She'd since discovered that Molly had put a ward on the room to alert her should Hermione dare step a toe into the hallway again. Simply put, she didn't.

A knock sounded from the door, as it always did every day after lunch. A quick glance at the calendar (which, of course, was half covered with large red X's) told her that it would be Draco.

"Hello, Draco," she said listlessly, turning towards him with an utterly bored expression.

"I'm so happy that you're glad to see me," he drawled.

"Always."

"Your sarcasm is particularly potent today," he told her, leaning up against the door with his arms folded across his chest. A small smirk crept onto his face. "Perhaps you'd be more sincere if it were Ron walking through the door?"

Hermione gave a short laugh. "Sincere is one word. Annoyed works just as well."

Draco's smirk grew into a conspiratorial grin that made Hermione lean forward, quite interested in what he had to say. "Suppose Ron were sitting downstairs in the kitchen right now…"

One look plainly conveyed what Hermione was too shocked to get out in words, and after a delighted waggle of his eyebrows, Draco disapparated. She had approximately three seconds, she estimated, before Draco would return with Ron, the man she had failed to see since he'd learned of her relationship with Blaise and promptly walked out, again, without saying a word.

Draco reappeared, tightly clutching a reluctant Ron. Draco's smirk grew ever wider as Ron struggled out of his grip, finally wrenching his arm free and giving the man a withering glare.

"Hello, Ron," Hermione said calmly. Frustration bubbled beneath her seemingly calm exterior, which was almost a relief to feel since it meant that guilt and shame no longer ate away at her silently. "Draco?"

"Do I really have to leave?" the blonde nearly whined. After a raised eyebrow from Hermione, he conceded, sighing and muttering until the door clicked shut.

Hermione turned to look at Ron, watching him as he scuffed his toe along the edge of the carpet like a little kid, his hands stuck in his pockets, hunched over and unwilling to look at her. She wished, with a silent sigh, that things between them were how she'd once dreamt them, loving and passionate. In reality, the only words they spoke out of passion were spiteful and petty, always in argument. She had to wonder if they could survive bringing up another man's child, had to wonder if she actually wanted to try.

"You left me again." She didn't mean to sound accusing, but even she could hear it in her voice. Ron didn't react as she expected, mumbling an apology or offering up excuses. Instead, he straightened up and looked her right in the eye, a stare that painfully echoed the one she received when he learned of her pregnancy.

"You left me first."

"You were practically dead!"

"But I was still alive."

Hermione snorted. "What, so I'm just supposed to give up on having anything resembling a life and spend all my time at your bedside while there was no change, Ronald?"

The fight and its tension petered off, both of them staring at each other and silently cooling down. Ron eventually came to sit on the foot of her bed, looking at his hands with a furrowed brow and a closed mouth.

She didn't want him to run away again. They needed to talk. "Why do you keep sending people up here to keep me company?" she asked.

Still, Ron didn't look at her, but at least he answered. "I dunno. I figured you were lonely."

"Why didn't you come up?"

"Did you want me to?"

Hermione nearly exclaimed, "Of course, Ron. You and I need to talk about all of this mess."

"No," Ron interrupted, glancing at her sidelong. "Did you want me?"

It became clear what he meant. Did she want him, sitting beside her bed, hoping for a healthy baby and delighting over the kicks he could feel? Did she want him to help her raise Blaise's baby?

She began to cry. The tears ran down her cheeks unrestrained, and sobs jerked out of her mouth in an ugly scene. She covered her face with her hands and wept, and when Ron gently put his arms around her in an unusual display of affection, she hid her face in his jumper and kept sobbing in the warm comfort of his arms.

They stayed that way for minutes, neither of them attempting to talk, as Hermione sobs quieted and subsided into hiccups. She stayed in his arms, her temporary safe haven, until the door creaked open.

Both of them looked up and gasped at the figure who stood in the door, looking at the compromising scene before him.

Hermione quickly pulled away from Ron and rubbed her tear-streaked face, only half noticing as Ron stood and moved to the far wall out of the way.

"Blaise?"