Honestly, the nerve of some people.

She'd traveled thousands of miles to make in-person invitations to her extended family members, and what thanks had she gotten? Doors slammed in her face and refusals to attend from nearly half of the Greengrass guest list! And surely the rest would follow once they'd caught wind of the news.

Astoria had just arrived back in her Grandmother's sitting room, her feet aching and her stomach churning. Morning sickness certainly wasn't restricting itself to mornings alone, it was after 10pm. Then again, with the time change her body was likely confused, it was morning in Britain. She slumped un-ladylike into an armchair, not giving a damn how it would look if anyone walked in.

Somehow, word of the identity of her unborn child's true father had reached her relatives in New Zealand. One distant cousin who had been in attendance at the Delacour party had overheard the argument between the blood-traitor and his muggle born bitch, and the rumor had been enough for her aunts and uncles to glom onto as absolute truth.

It had, in reality, been accurate... but the fact that they'd been so quick to believe such gossip had been utterly insulting!

Apparently, they didn't care who she was intending to marry, not that they found Draco to be a particularly suitable choice either. Regardless, they simply would not be party to her having any connection with the Weasley family.

She was doomed.

If this was how her blood relatives would react, what of the greater wizarding world? True, this gossip had not yet been revealed on a large scale, yet it could only be a matter of time before someone blabbed.

Draco had taken measures to get Rita Skeeter under his control, or so it'd seemed. She still hadn't been clear on the details of the bargain he'd struck with the nosey upstart, as it had begun prior to their engagement. Perhaps he could re-negotiate to include a flat refusal of her connection to Ron Weasley. Better yet, they could bribe a healer to falsify the results of a paternity test, and shut the world up for good.

Then again, rumors were going to happen. The Malfoys alone had more money than Merlin and could easily pay off anyone... a fact which everyone in the wider wizarding world knew full well. People were bound to believe the rumors.

Placing her hand on her stomach, she gave it a small squeeze and felt hot tears prickling in the corners of her eyes.

This was a new occurrence for her. Tears had always been a sign of weakness, and yet for the past month she'd been wholly unable to contain them. Every little thing set her off, but especially the topic of her unborn child's fate.

By all accounts, she should hate the thing. A parasitic un-wanted growth, and nothing more.

But she didn't. She didn't hate it.

On some strange level, she had never felt more whole in her life than she had after finding out that she was pregnant.

Was she terrified? Absolutely. Was she mortified that she was having a baby out of traditional wedlock? Yes of course.

And yet... she was jubilant inside. She felt a new sense of purpose in the world, after years of not understanding what the point of her was.

She had been all silly games and intrigues to win a husband. Shallow plots to find a way to merely exist in the world and never work a difficult day in her life.

Ron Weasley has called it accurately. She had, in fact, spent most of the war fretting about what would become of her and who would be left for her to marry.

The thought of it sickened her now.

Because having a baby in your belly brought forward a startling realization: you are here for a reason. Your existence serves a profound purpose. You are now responsible for a life.

The world will be different because of you.

These were things she'd never been able to think of herself and her life, yet they were suddenly incontrovertible.

Even if the baby was technically a bastard.

Even though it joined her with the most hated of the sacred twenty-eight.

Even if half of her family and who knows how many else would shun her...

She was a mother now, and that meant something.

Wiping her eyes for the millionth time, she wondered whether she'd be able to keep up her act.

To anyone witnessing her, she would have seemed entirely indifferent about her pregnancy, not to mention about the identity of the father. In truth, she was gut-wrenched about the whole affair. This was not at all how things were supposed to play out.

On the night of the party, she'd been gloating to Pansy about her plot to re-engage Draco in their marriage promise. She'd actually had no intentions of doing so, but Pansy had said something to annoy her and she'd just wanted to get under her skin.

In actuality, she had written Draco off as a lost cause. They had been connected since infancy and spent much of their childhoods together. She wasn't sure what he was going through that would have him flee Britain and remain in hiding, but she was quite sure he wouldn't be easily persuaded to return. Aside from that, she also didn't believe society would be overly accepting of their union, not to mention Draco himself. Therefore she couldn't see how pursuing him would end well for her.

Her other choices had become quite thin, however, as most of the pureblood wizards around her age were already paired off. She'd begun to think that she would have to find someone quite a bit younger or older. Younger was really out of the question, thought, as she herself was only twenty-one and she was not about to be courted by a teenager.

When she'd spotted Ron at the start of the party, she'd made her decision. He was taken, but he had older brothers and she had not heard news of all of them pairing off. She knew that one of the older ones had married Fleur Delacour, and if the ginger-haired blood-traitors were good enough for that family, how unacceptable could they really be?

When he broke away from his friends and made his way to the lifts, she had followed closely behind with the intention to get a private audience with him in which she could inquire about the marital status of his kin. She'd wandered the halls of the floor he'd gone to, frustrated by the fact that she hadn't immediately found him. Storming around the place frantically, she'd just about decided to give up on the entire idea when she'd crashed into him.

Habitual venom had immediately spewed from her mouth, assuring that her original intention would no longer be plausible.

Putting her foot in her mouth was a great pastime of hers, and she'd had no choice after that but to redouble her efforts to repel him.

During their argument, however, she couldn't help but feel a spark ignite between them. He had studied her a moment too long, seemingly drinking her in. And before breaking that spell, she had done the same in return.

Though she'd been loath to admit it, she'd always had a penchant for freckles and ginger hair.

And then he'd tried to walk away, but she hadn't been done with him yet. She'd discovered that he had a sharp tongue, just like her, and wondered if he also found his foot in his mouth on a regular basis. Probably so.

And he'd been right, she did need a good lay. It'd sounded vaguely like an invitation.

In her state of desperation, as well as confusion about her sudden feelings, she quite forgotten that he was a married man.

And then, shame. Embarrassment beyond anything she could imagine as he pulled away and told her he couldn't go through with it.

That had been it. She'd snapped her mask of cruel indifference back on and retreated to rejoin her friends and attempt to gain back some of her pride.

When she'd woken up next to him, having no recollection of ending up there, she had panicked. Even now, she couldn't remember what she'd said to him, but she was certain it had been vile. In retrospect, he had sincerely seemed just as confused as she, and yet her own guilty conscience had caused her to lash out. Again.

Many weeks later, once she had discovered her pregnancy, she could not face him. She'd settled for writing him letters. It was the only way she could ensure her message to be on point.

If she had to see him again in person, she wasn't sure what she'd do.

After a week, she'd gone to her parents and confessed to her "drunken mistake," which had predictably sent them into a tailspin of problem solving and scheming. Draco's article ran the very next morning, and her Father had latched on to the idea of re-instating the promise in an instant.

She'd watched it all happen, zombie-like, a renewed sense of woe about her life settling into the pit of her stomach.

But then… she'd sensed the presence of her child. It could not be larger than a grain of rice, and yet its presence in her was incontrovertible. And she knew…

She would do whatever it bloody took to ensure that her child would be accepted in this world.

She'd written to Draco and gone to see him, putting on an act of desperation around the idea of being connected with Ron Weasley, when in reality she'd been holding on to a bitter regret that she couldn't explore the possibility of that relationship working. He was a married man, and under the circumstances, her family would never allow it even if he were single, war hero or no.

No, she was thinking of her child first and foremost, and whoever she needed to manipulate along the way to promising the baby a bright future… so be it.

Rushing off to New Zealand to ensure face-to-face contact with her relatives seemed the next obvious task, after securing the marriage paperwork of course.

Now that she was done with it, however, she realized that sending owls would have been about as effective. She regretted the useless trip and cursed her relatives for being so incredibly stubborn. All of this traveling was wearing her thin, especially because portkeys were not recommended during pregnancy, and so she'd had to perform a combination of apparition and floo-networking to get there. Her journey back would take a few days once she factored in resting and recharging, and she would begin first thing Monday morning.

She retired to her room, and performed her usual nighttime routine. Slipping under the satin covers of her Grandmother's guest bed, she drifted off quickly, completely forgetting the dreamless sleep potion she'd been taking nightly since finding out she was pregnant.

She walked into the pub and spotted him right away, his red hair beacon-like in the darkened room. Their eyes met, as if her entrance into the room had caused a magical disturbance only he could sense. He stood.

As they walked toward each other, every head in the pub turned in their direction, anxiously awaiting the moment they would meet almost as much as they both were.

Finally, they were in front of one another, and they both instinctively reached down to interlace their fingers without even having to look. He pulled her close, clutching her hands to his chest.

"I've missed you," he said, speaking directly onto her lips, his eyes blazing into hers.

A number of patrons began to wolf whistle and jeer at them, but neither cared.

"I've missed you too, darling," she said with a tear in her eye. He reached up and brushed it away, looking concerned. She laughed softly.

"I'm sorry, everything makes me cry now, even happiness."

He smiled lovingly at her. "You never need to apologize to me for being happy, love."

A tearful grin up at him, and another soft laugh as she pressed her face against his chest and breathed him in. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and said into her ear, "can I take you home now?"

She pulled back and looked at him in surprise. "Home? As in?"

He grinned down at her. "As in I found us a place!"

She squealed and wrapped her arms around his neck, jumping up and down as he laughed. A great deal of chatter was now happening in the pub, and he looked around the room with a grimace before bringing his attention back to her.

"Shall we?"

She grinned appreciatively and nodded her agreement. They turned and quickly made their way out of the pub. A few men applauded as they went by.

Once outside, he apparated them and they were instantly in a dark bedroom. A cherry wood four poster king sized bed stood in the center of the room. With a wave of his wand, Ron lit the room with candlelight, clearly having prepared this beforehand. She gasped.

"Ron it's," she looked up at him, "it's perfect."

"You mean it's just like you?"

She hit him in the chest playfully. "Oh stop with the cheesy nonsense and ravish me please."

Instantly, he picked her up and spun her around, tossing her onto the edge of the bed as she squealed. He stood between her thighs, which she clenched tightly around him, grinding forward into his hardness as he removed her cloak. The rest of their clothes were off and onto the floor in a flash, and as their chests pressed together she devoured his mouth hungrily.

He laid her back onto the bed and began kissing slowly down her neck, then to her chest, and as he made to keep going she grabbed him by the shoulders.

"No need, I'm more than ready after a week away, darling."

With no interest in arguing, he let out a low growl and returned his lips to hers, thrusting himself inside her in one swift movement. She cried out, relishing the feeling of him inside of her that she'd been imagining every night for the past week. He began to pump into her slowly and she let out a frustrated moan.

"Much. Harder." she said through gritted teeth, "Now."

All too happy to oblige, he shifted both of her legs up onto her shoulders and slammed into her at a rapid pace. She screamed.

"Oh yes! Like that! Please yes more!"

He groaned as he gripped her creamy thighs so tightly he'd surely leave bruises.

"mmmm yes make it hurt! Please!"

Staring deeply into her eyes, he trailed his hand down the outside of her thigh and onto her arse. She was panting heavily and having trouble keeping her eyes from rolling back, but she looked back at him as best she could and whispered, "do it."

He lifted his hand and brought it back down in a sharp spank, which made her squeal with delight. Then again. And again. With every other thrust into her slick warmth, he brought his hand down to spank her.

"Tell me. Tell me why I deserve it," she breathed between gasps and moans.

"Because you're a," SPANK, "fucking," SPANK, "stuck-up," SPANK, "pureblood," SPANK, "BITCH!"

This sent her over the edge screaming one long, "Aaaaaaah!" as she came hard and long. Long enough for him to go right over the edge with her.

Her body was convulsing with her orgasm, and she struggled to draw breath.

Just then…

She awoke. Sweat dripping down he chest. Her hand between her legs. Coming down from the most incredible release she'd felt in years.