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Chapter Thirteen:

"Pregnant?" Ginny mouthed mutely to Harry who replied with a clueless shrug.

They opened the door to reveal the startling scene…

--

Hermione left the warmth of the fireplace, expecting Harry to want to have some well-deserved privacy with Ginny after she overheard him gracelessly collected her from the meeting. She carefully placed a bookmark on her page, since folding it was out of the question, and heading up the stairs towards her room. But she heard sobbing. Hermione cautiously opened the nearby door to see Bonnie sitting on the bed, her face buried within her hands, crying. She felt a little stupid, for a second she wondered if Bonnie even cried - or anyone else besides herself and Mrs. Weasley for that matter. Of course it was nonsense, everyone cried. "Bonnie?" she whispered, closing the door and approaching the weeping woman. "Are you alright?"

"N-No." she moaned, letting out a small groan and another hiccuping sob.

"What…" Hermione approached her warily and sat beside her. "What happened?"

The woman sniffled and ceased the tears from falling. "Ah… Ah… how could Ah let this -?"she wailed loudly in what seemed like a frustrated shriek. Bonnie broke down into another series of snivels and shred of tears; Hermione could only make out so much. "Just before the wedding… Ah… how can Ah tell him?... What am Ah going to do?... What will he say?"

"Bonnie, calm down," Hermione said firmly. "Now, explain to me nice and steadily what's going on."

She tried to keep a comfortable aura; it was always easier for people to talk when they don't feel pressured. A cool and composed atmosphere and expression of mind and bodily movement, she read it in a meditation book once, she couldn't recall where but she knew she would need it for dealing with Ron and Harry in their last year at Hogwarts. Bonnie looked up at her, her eyes red and puffy. "Ah… Ah'm pregnant."

Her composure was lost. "Pregnant? Pregnant? What do you mean pregnant?" she exclaimed in dismay, jumping up from the bed.

There was a pause where she and Bonnie ogled at each other in anxious shock, then the door opened, putting a stop to their thoughts.

"Pregnant?" Ginny inquired, glancing between the two women and Harry frantically. "Who's pregnant?"

"Keep your voice down!" Hermione hissed, running behind them and closing the door.

"Hermione!" Harry cried in shock. "Malfoy knocked you up?"

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, feeling greatly insulted, but Bonnie looked at her pleadingly; she could tell that she wasn't ready to let anyone else know the situation quite yet. She wanted Ron to know first, so she could understand her uncertainty in the matter. Fine. She growled to herself. For Ron's bloody sake. "Yes," Hermione said with strain and a twisted toothy smile. "Isn't it just wonderful?" Harry and Ginny both blinked, Bonnie looked relieved and thankful, but a little hesitant.

"This is a good thing?" she heard Ginny whisper to Harry who continued to stare.

"Well…" Hermione didn't know what to say. "No, I suppose it isn't."

After a long silence, Harry finally spoke.

"I'LL KILL THE SODDING PRAT!"

"Who are you going to kill, dear?" came the casual voice of Mrs. Weasley, she had opened the door and was looking at the group strangely. Harry's eyes were blazing in murderous wrath, though Hermione knew comfortingly that it wasn't aimed at her. "Dinners ready…" Mrs. Weasley tried for a reply again, but failed in a reaction. "What's the matter?" she concluded worriedly.

Harry gritted his teeth. "Hermione's pregnant!" he exclaimed, his hands thrown in the air with exaggeration.

Mrs. Weasley gasped. "What?"

"WHAT?" Ron was walking past when he heard Harry's statement, his mouth hanging open like a hinge.

Not knowing, Hermione and Bonnie both mentally hit themselves on the head.

Bugger crap.

--

Dinner was being picked and poked at in silence, the twins appeared greatly curious over the sudden dark cloud hovering menacingly over their heads. Harry seemed to be moping heatedly, Ginny looked strained, Ron was utterly depressed, their mothers gaze was completely confused and Hermione and Bonnie looked sick and extremely edgy. "Err… do I want to know what's wrong?" Fred finally spoke; he seemed slightly reluctant to ask such a dreaded question and rightfully so since as soon as the words left his mouth Harry's cutlery was banged with his fists onto the table.

"How did this happen?" he burst demandingly in Hermione's direction.

"Well," Ginny finished a gulp of her water before continuing. "When a boy and a girl –"

"I know how it happened!"

Another hush came over them. "So…" George persisted. "Would any of you lot mind explaining the situation?"

"Don't make it long," Fred added quickly. "Get straight to the point. Make it simple and concise."

"Hermione's pregnant," Ron stated quietly from his seat beside Bonnie and Harry, "with Malfoy's child. Cant get anymore clear than that."

Fred and George looked startled, then smiled. "Great!" George said. "We could hold Malfoy's heir as ransom!" Hermione blinked.

"Yeah!" Fred agreed with a grin, it was one of the few times she saw them act as they did before, cheerful and jokingly. "'Let us win the war or the kid becomes a Weasley!'"

"'We'll dye its hair red and everything!'"

"This is nothing to joke about boys." Mrs. Weasley stated calmly.

Is this how they'd react if I was really pregnant…? Hermione seemed uneasy at the very idea. "Hermione?" Ginny asked her meekly. "You don't look too well. Do you feel sick?"

The next moment Mrs. Weasley's hand flew straight to her forehead for a temperature check. "Dear, oh dear," she muttered. "Hermione, are you experiencing cramping? Abdomen pain? You do seem a little pale… do you feel like throwing up?" Hermione felt her cheeks flush in humiliation as everyone looked at her with their own kind of emotion.

"Actually, I think I am going to throw up."

She picked herself up from the table and fled the room as fast as she could manage. Ginny cleared her throat.

"So Harry," she began pleasantly. "How was your day?"

--

It was Ron and Bonnie's turn to clean up the kitchen, the others were all busy checking on Hermione - who had locked herself in the bathroom - or continued to prepare for the battle that could take place any day now. Bonnie was trying, unsuccessfully, to start a conversation. "Ron?" she tried again for the fifth time, but the man was completely off in his own world. He couldn't even hear her; all he did was stare into nothingness as the dishes washed themselves. "Ron?" Bonnie's mouth twisted into a scowl. "RON!" she snapped loudly.

He got such a shock he almost fell to the ground, blinking profoundly at her. "Bonnie!" he exclaimed, as if he just realised she was standing there. "Yes? What is it?"

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her shaking nerves. "Ron…"

"You do know you've said that already?"

"Ron –" her tone was serious, but he spoke without waver.

"I can't believe Hermione's pregnant…" he stated remorsefully. "I mean, great for her. She really deserves a little bit of brightness, right?" it seemed he thought he could find the answer in the reflection of the saucepan. "I'm not being selfish by being worried for her, am I? Cause seriously, a kid is a lot to handle, especially in a time like this…"

"Err…" she cleared her throat irritably. "Ron!"

"But really, who else other than a Death Eater would bring a baby into a world like this?" Ron continued his rant, waving about the pot about in Bonnie's generally direction and towards the sky. "There's a war going on, for Merlin's sake! It's not like we can just pat her on the back and wish her the best of luck when its father is one of the highest on You-Know-Who's best buddies list, think of what he'll do to Malfoy's kid!" His face paled. "Oh no, what if it isn't Malfoy's kid?"

Bonnie felt her heart drop. "Would yeh listen to meh?" she demanded.

"I just don't know what to think," he was lost in his words; an upset tone thickened the air. "I don't know what to say!"

"Ron!"

"Spit it out already, Bonnie. I don't have all night!"

"Ah'm pregnant!"

"I mean it's bad enough –" he lost his voice; he stared, seeming unable to speak, until he finally spluttered. "Not you too!"

Bonnie knew he would take it badly, but she had to put a stop to the "Hermione's pregnant" matter before she got them both in trouble. "But Ron –" she began, he interrupted her frantically.

"Why is this happening?" he demanded himself. "First Hermione, now you!" he addressed her with a hand gesture. "Is there something in the water? Seriously, what is it with you women? One of you get pregnant, next thing you know there's another! Should we lock away Ginny just in case? What about poor mum!"

"But," Bonnie tried for another chance to speak. "Hermione isn't –"

"Bloody hell," he cursed, running his fingers through his hair nervously. "Bloody hell."

Ron looked up at her with a questioning gaze.

"How long?" he muttered.

She hesitated. "About two months along."

"Bloody hell."

--

The stench of death followed him; it seemed that sorrow fed on his insides until he felt hollow and completely empty. Gathering after gathering seemed to have the place he once thought was home, but it had lost all meaning, the halls were alive with muttering strategies and echoing footsteps but it still felt the same – dead. Completely still. Dark, alone.

"Draco…" the hiss of the Dark Lord rang in his ears, he was immediately alert.

"Yes my Lord?" he gulped, his throat felt dry and parched, clucking his tongue for moisture.

"It has come to my attention…" he began slowly. "That Hermione, our Hermione, has been seen with the Order of the Phoenix."

Draco's eyes widened. Hermione was working with the Order? The very same Order they were but days away from slaughtering? It couldn't be true. Voldemort had appeared quite calm, now seemed in a deadly rage; his eyes were but red slits on his face as he glared with ferocity at him. "This is but a rumour, correct?" he whispered. "A jealous lie, a fictionist tale to try and take us off guard? What is the meaning of this?"

Draco cowered as the Dark Lord roared and gritted his pointed teeth; sheer terror ran through him as he raised his wand.

"I–I can not say!" he stuttered feebly. "I can not say for sure! My Lord, she is –"

"Going to die," he said harshly, turning his back to Draco and began striding down the corridor. "Tomorrow."

An icy cold breeze blew, though he didn't know what had happened, he ran after him. "T-Tomorrow?" Draco queried, his lips felt numb. "Tomorrow, my Lord?"

Voldemort stopped walking, leisurely turning to face the pale faced man once more. "Indeed," he stated casually. "We shall attack the Order of the Phoenix tomorrow," he paused with a smirk. "And they all will die." The last of his blood drained out of his face, Draco watched in awe as the Dark Lord left, only the swirling blackness of his cloak visible to him while his thought remanded clouded and thick. "Oh, and Draco," Voldemort called from the very end of the hall. "You will kill her."

He fell to his knees as the man he called his Lord disappeared from his sight. Tomorrow they were to go to war, two days earlier than planned. And… he couldn't bring himself to think the dreaded fact. To even imagine completing such an order. Draco felt as if a bitter presence clench his heart and squeeze with all its might, going against every fibre of his being.

He was ordered to kill Hermione.

Sorry this one took so long, though I think I deserve forgiveness-brownie-points for uploading at midnight! Please review your thoughts! Praise is good too! Haha, thanks!

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Hazel-Buttafly