A Difference of Opinion - Chapter 24
Funny how the voice still managed to resonate some disgust in her. The high-pitched, overly friend chirping hadn't changed since she'd last seen her.
"Umbridge?"
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-- Five Years Prior --
At five months along, Hermione glowed like no other. She kept assuring her husband that all the hoopla surrounding 'glowing' pregnant women was just a bunch of nonsense, but he wouldn't have it. He insisted with certainty she had the glow, one far greater than any other woman, pregnant or not, he'd ever seen.
How could she deny a man like that?
Rubbing her swollen belly in gentle circles, she waited patiently for her husband to finish speaking with some Ministry officials. Draco promised to take her to lunch, but he first needed to stop by an office to discuss certain matters. She didn't mind, though the thought of some strawberry ice cream made her mouth water.
Damn cravings.
It had been so bad the previous night Draco actually found himself heading to the nearest grocery shop to locate pickles. She smirked at the memory...
"Draco?"
Gently placing her hand on his shoulder, she shook him lightly out of his sleep. He grumbled into his pillow, but otherwise remained soundless.
She tried again, "Draco, honey..."
Stretching in a half-asleep state, he muttered in a sleep-husky voice, "Was'sa matter?"
"I want pickles."
"Wha?"
"I want pickles dipped in mustard."
Finally his attention snapped and he turned to face her, his eyes squinted with sleep and his mouth pursed in confusion.
"Are you kidding me?"
Shaking her head, she replied, "No. I really want pickles right now. We're out, but would you mind terribly running out to pick some up?"
"It's two in the bloody morning, Hermione," he choked out, still sounding confused.
"I know," she acknowledged.
"You can't possibly be serious."
Sighing heavily, she sat herself up out of the bed and gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know it seems crazy. I'll go, you go back to sleep. I'm sor—"
"Hermione, lay back down. I'll go."
She could hear the annoyance in his voice, but it didn't keep the smile off her face. She at least at the decency to say—"Thanks, love. And don't forget the mustard."
Ten minutes later, Hermione was happily chomping on her pickle while a grumbling Draco tried to fall back asleep...
"I hope you're thinking about me," came a low drawl.
As her content smile grew, she replied, "Just my lover. You know, tall, blond chap whose hair is far too perfect."
"I know the bloke," said Draco, taking a seat next to her, "and I think he's a right fool. Who in their right mind would leave someone so beautiful out here by herself?"
Snorting, she said with a hint of bitterness, "I'm a fat cow, Draco. Beautiful hardly describes my present state."
Sighing, Draco leaned forward to press a kiss to her stomach, rubbing the soft flesh beneath her belly button. "Hurry up and get here. Your mum is crazy if she thinks she isn't gorgeous."
A smile crept back on her face.
"Isn't this sweet," hissed an unkind voice. Hermione instantly gripped Draco's hand, squeezing tightly out of reaction. Even though she hadn't seen the woman for years, her squeaky voice still managed to scare her. No, I'm NOT afraid of this bottom-feeding bitch, she thought fiercely.
"Miss Umbridge, it's a...pleasure," said Draco insolently.
Hermione raised her head in order to see the woman's reaction, finding the same pudgy face still resonating waves of hatred. Her short legs looked even stubbier in her black skirt, the white shirt tucked in and bunching around her wide hips. Still flat as a toad, her face appeared pastier from the time she'd last seen her, and with far less make-up. Then again, Azkaban wasn't known for just handing out beauty supplies.
To top it off, glowing chains were wrapped around her stubby wrists. Hermione had the distinct feeling the woman's fingers wanted to wrap around either Draco's neck or her own; whoever she could reach first.
"Mister Malfoy and...Missus Malfoy? You know, after my short reign at Hogwarts I thought I gathered a strong sense of the relationships amongst the students. I never expected the two of you to get together, much less...breed."
Hermione placed a warning hand on Draco's arm, silently telling him not to do something crazy. The last thing she needed was for him to kill the woman in the Ministry, even as much as she'd enjoy seeing the her mean eyes bulge from her head. She figured there must be some law stating one can't kill another just for sport (under other circumstances she would have snorted over the thought).
Letting out an audible exhalation, Draco said, "There are very few things you know about me or my wife, Miss Umbridge. Perhaps you can read up on one of Hermione's many biographies once you get back into incarceration. I'm sure some of those could explain—"
"I know enough about you two these days. Heard quite the talk in Azkaban."
"From who?" asked Hermione, inching closer to Draco.
Smirking, the woman answered, "I don't reveal my sources. I may have been locked in there for several years, but I wasn't in solitary confinement. I've gotten to know quite a few people that know plenty about you two."
"What a charming thing to inform others of," noted Draco sarcastically, "and I'm sure it will help you to find a great husband in there. Or maybe when you get out in a hundred years."
"Oh, you didn't hear?" she exclaimed, her smirking growing and her voice so high-pitched Hermione nearly held her hands to her ears. "I thought everyone knew, but I can understand how they'd want to hide the information from someone like Hermione Granger. Being a war hero, I'm sure you'd be slightly perturbed."
"What in Merlin's name is she talking about?" Draco asked the guard beside her, his wand jamming near the edge of Umbridge's back. The man didn't respond, but merely continued to look at the stocky woman with disgust.
"I'm appealing."
"Hardly," quipped Hermione, Draco and the guard chuckling beside her.
Throwing her a nasty glare, her beady eyes traveling down and lingering on Hermione's pregnant belly, making her feel extremely uncomfortable, she retorted, "No. I'm making an appeal."
"An appeal?" Hermione echoed, turning her wide eyes up at Draco.
Their shared gaze halted when Umbridge continued, "Yes, an appeal. You see, while I may have done certain things at the Ministry, I hardly consider any treatment on others as malicious or even bad—"
"You tortured muggle-born families!" screamed Hermione indignantly, rising to her feet, her face flushed and angry. "You sent people to their deaths! You're a TERRIBLE person!"
Draco stood up next to her, wrapping his arm around, attempting to soothe her. She barely registered his lips near her ear, telling her to calm down for her sake as well as the baby's. Hermione was beyond hearing or responding to anything coming from his mouth, only gnashing her teeth at the woman before her.
"Hardly," the short woman taunted, shrugging her flabby shoulders, repeating Hermione's own jibe back.
"Hardly?!" questioned Hermione, positively outraged. "I stood beside you. I saw everything you did, you horrid, conniving, deceitful bitch!"
"Steady there, Hermione," whispered Draco, rubbing her back and belly soothingly. "Please, calm down. Healer Gordon said you need to keep calm or it will agitate the baby."
Turning into him, he could clearly see her eyes glittering with angry, helpless tears. Draco knew to act; he needed to get her the hell out of there.
"I'm sorry," muttered Umbridge unconvincingly. "I had no idea Miss Granger would react like this."
"Her name is Malfoy and you damn well knew she would. I'll be seeing you again, when Hermione and I fight to the brink in order to make sure you lose your appeal."
"We shall see, Mister Malfoy."
Hermione absolutely dissolved into tears the moment the woman was out of sight. Deciding it best to skip lunch, he flooed them both home. Once inside their flat, Hermione left for their bedroom, collapsing on the bed to weep openly.
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"What happens if they release her?"
Draco set her tea down on the table in front of her, tea he brewed specially in order to soothe her stomach and jumbled nerves. Sighing, rubbing the back of his neck, he shook his head, unsure how to answer her.
"You know she's a tyrant. She'll come out and just...I don't even want to think about the destruction she'll cause. Probably team up with the cow Rita Skeeter and print ludicrous things about Harry and Ron, just like Rita did Dumbledore. Umbridge has it out for Harry."
"We don't even know she'll get out. Come on, Hermione, you know the Ministry would never let her out," he told her, trying to affirm her the situation would resolve. However, Hermione didn't take to his words one bit.
"Drake, you know the Ministry as well as I do. You may work there regularly, but you do so in order to make change. I used to work there and I did so to change the tyranny and diminish the new laws that people like that bitch, Umbridge, set in place. The Ministry may have changed some, especially with Kingsley working there, but come on...you know as well as I do that there is still hostility as well as oppression. People like Umbridge can manipulate others and she will get out."
"Then we won't let her," he said fiercely, dropping to his knees in front of her sitting position, taking her hands in his. "We fight and we don't allow her to get out. What's more, we'll fight to make sure Azkaban has greater security. Screw the dementors and all that, we will make sure people like her can't even think about leaving Azkaban for the sake of an appeal."
"I'm scared, Draco," she admitted, fighting back the tears. "I don't like this at all."
"I know, love, but we'll make it through this. You're a fighter and, more so, you're a winner. You'll fight and you'll win."
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-- Two Months Later --
"After numerous hearings and trials, not to mention new information from the Parkinson and Nott families, I find we can no longer deny certain atrocities have been exaggerated and overstated. While the panel and I have taken the many testimonies into account, particularly Missus Malfoy's deposition, we think our conclusion is correct and her punishment has been completed. By the authority invested in me, by the law and power of the Ministry of Magic, I hereby declare the appeal of one Dolores Umbridge instated in full, beginning today. Miss Umbridge, you're free to go."
A seven-month pregnant Hermione collapsed into Draco, sobbing silently into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her solicitously.
"It's okay," he whispered, "it's going to be okay. It'll be all right."
Even as he said the words, he knew they sounded and felt hollow. The smirk Umbridge shot the couple was just the final Cruciatus Curse in the heart.
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-- Present Day --
"Umbridge?"
"Yes, dear, it's me. I'm not sure what I should call you, Hermione. Is it Malfoy or Granger? Or...are you even sure, my dear?"
"You took my children," she choked out, her eyes watering.
"Clever girl, I took Malfoy's children, not yours. I should think you'd be grateful. After all, if you really cared about the children then you'd be with your husband searching for them, no?"
Her nails dug into her palm, forming tiny, white crescents in the skin. She spat, "I don't care what you say, I love this kids. I'll die to protect them."
"That may very well happen. Grab her!"
Out of nowhere, two sets of hands gripped her arms firmly and yanked her to her feet, the mud and snow sloshing around her ankles. Her eyes nearly crossed as Umbridge pointed her wand directly at her face before shouting, "Stupefy!"
Instantly everything went black...
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Hermione never thought her body could feel like it weighed ten thousand pounds, but she proved herself wrong. The weight of her clothes, simple and modest black attire, felt as though each garment had been sewed with gold lining. Everything felt hefty. Even her eyelids felt too heavy to hold up.
Feeling her temples throb beneath the skin just about drove her insane. Merely by sheer willpower did she manage to keep her sanity in tact, the two boys beside her driving her to continue fighting.
Harry and Ron.
HER Harry and HER Ron had kept at her side the entire time, the trio reacting on instinct not only for themselves but for the other. Just more evidence to assert the value of the friendship.
"This is it," sighed Harry, his chest rising and falling in rapid secession, mounting panic turning into anguish.
"Let's do it," said Ron, gripping his wand and taking a step forward.
"Wait," he told them anxiously, "just wait a second. I've got to ask you one more time...please, don't do this."
"Harry, we've gone through this—"
"No! No, no more being my best friends. Right now, you're two people who should not be risking their lives. I'm asking...no, I'm BEGGING you to reconsider this. Do not come with me in there. Let me do this on my own, it's not worth your lives."
Hermione looked up through her tangled hair, her heart hollow and her head full, the differential so distinct she nearly felt herself toppling over from it. Harry always had been the moody one of the trio, if she got right down to it. Sure, Ron had severe anger mood swings from time to time, but not to the degree of Harry. He got down, lower than the ground, if something plagued his mind. It was up to his two best mates to get him out of it. Right now, his mind cogitated the idea of his friends dying; more so, the idea of his friends dying because of him, a completely ludicrous aspect. Hermione knew better than to let him sulk.
"Harry, you, Ron, and I are in this together. All for one and one for all, yeah?"
Shaking his head, gritting his teeth, he muttered, "This isn't bloody quidditch and this isn't searching through Hogwarts to find Malfoy up to something—"
"You're right," interrupted Hermione, staring up through glassy eyes, "this is about us. This is about three people, not students or Gryffindors or even the Golden Trio, but people who want to live in a world free of oppression and of fear. We're not just with our best mate, but with Harry Potter, the hero of the Wizarding World and we fight beside him."
"She's right, mate," acknowledged Ron, leaning over to grasp Harry by the shoulder in a comradely fashion; "we're not just doing this for us, but for every wizard and witch out there. I've made my choice. I stand behind Harry Potter. We stand behind Harry Potter."
Swallowing a thick gulp of cool air, Harry nodded, and pulled the two of them into a brief, albeit fierce, three-way hug. Upon releasing them, he held out his wand, nodded at them as a signal to prepare themselves, and then opened the doors, charging the world's greatest dark wizards and witches.
"He's mine!" snarled Voldemort, his red eyes blazing with a fierce light of anger and glee, a completely maniacal and deranged look marring his already hideous face.
Ron knocked two death eaters, Crabbe and Goyle seniors, back with a stunning spell, giving Harry plenty of space to begin his long, tedious duel with the Dark Lord. Following the cast, he immediately went after the larger men, pushing Hermione to go for the women (in the hopes of them being easier to handle physically).
Hermione initially maintained close contact with them, keeping herself within range as to protect them if someone dared to fire a shot from behind. However, worrying over another's back began to take a toll, a costly one, and she instead was forced to focus solely on her own survival and the dark people before her.
"Filthy mudblood spawn,"snarled Bellatrix Lestrange, her evil cackling echoing in Hermione's ears. If the crazy bitch keeps this up, I'm likely to be bleeding from my ears, thought Hermione fleetingly. "You're a foul, disgusting little wench, bent on soiling the pure around you."
"The only thing pure about you are the wrinkles on your rotted skin, you twit!" shouted Hermione, firing a deflection spell immediately after her words were released. She couldn't allow an unforgivable to take her down. If she managed to fire a Cruciatus, or worse - the killing curse, she'd essentially be done. This thought pained her, not so much for herself but rather her friends, two people who desperately needed her to stay strong.
"Protego!" she shouted, deflecting another vicious spell of Bellatrix's. Hermione, though book smart and clever, didn't have the field experience like the mad bitch before her.
One false move would claim her life.
One mistake would cost her.
When she made the mistake, moved one second too slow, she saw her life flash before her eyes. She saw her parents playing football with her in the yard as a five-year-old child; she saw herself red in the face, a vase on the table (magically) shattering, when her mother told her she couldn't have cookie before supper; she saw herself being rescued in a bathroom from a troll by two dunderhead boys; she saw herself laughing at the Yule Ball, one of the cutest boys on her arm; she saw her parents smiling over her O.L.W.'s, beaming with pride over their intelligent daughter; and she saw her best friends Harry and Ron laughing and smiling with her, cracking jokes over a glass of butterbeer.
Everything in her life, every meaningless and important event flashing before her dark eyes, allowed for a final smile to twist her lips.
Yet, suddenly, out of nowhere, she found herself crashing to her right side and sprawled on the floor, a heavy body on top of hers. At first she figured someone had been killed and thrown into her. Then a wisp of red hair fell across her own face and she felt hands wrapping around her head as though for protection.
Ron.
Ron had thrown himself over her in order to protect her.
"Ron?"
Only, he didn't answer. As soon as she lifted up, she felt a jolt of a spell hitting flesh but it wasn't her own. Bellatrix, the evil bitch, cast the killing curse on Ron, taking his life without a second thought.
"Oh no...NO!"
Rolling Ron onto his back, she took a moment to knock Bellatrix back with a simple deflection spell. She ran her hands across his pale face, his look suggesting that his final thought had been, 'well, shit. The bitch got me.'
Tears fell down her cheeks, landing unchecked on his own still face, as she murmured, "You stupid, stupid fool! You shouldn't have done that. Why didn't you let me go? Why did you sacrifice yourself?"
As though expecting an answer, she took another second to rub his soft cheek and sift her hands through his coppery hair.
Rational thought gone, she rose to her feet and physically launched herself at the woman, knocking her wand away. Punching, hitting, scratching, and viciously clawing at her sallow skin without mercy, Hermione beat on Bella for all she was worth. Her mind, far beyond reason or critical thought, sat dumbly and allowed her to take out all the anger and anguish and despair and hate she felt on the witch who caused it.
She took Ron away from her.
From her and Harry.
Oh no, Harry!
With her nails digging into the witch's face, her fight long since gone and life slowly seeping away, Hermione glanced over her shoulder in pursuit of Harry. Several death eaters lay slain on the ground while others were crowded around Harry and another dark, hooded figure.
Voldemort.
Hermione couldn't hear, only the sound of her rapidly beating heart resonating in her mind, but she could see Harry and Voldemort firing spell after spell against each other.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Protego!"
"You little runt, useless boy, you must die!" he hissed, his long, ugly tongue slipping out from his thin lips.
Disgusted, Harry quipped, "The only useless thing here is your feeble body of bones, bones which will now be turned into DUST! BAN DESTRUERE!"
Then it happened.
In one instant Voldemort was standing and in the next...Harry's spell flittered through his snake-like form, and he dropped like a stone on the ground - dead. Furthermore, his body seemed to deflate, leaving nothing save thin, hideous flesh behind.
The bastard finally got his.
"Harry!" she called, out of her mind with joy, exhaustion, and fear.
Turning his head, his green eyes met hers, a smile giving her a silent message of thanks and love, before she felt a wand jamming in her back.
And everything went black...
"HARRY!"
Sitting bold up right, drenched head to toe in cold sweat, Hermione frantically looked around the filthy confines of some sort of dungeon. Nothing of her surroundings registered as she dropped her face in her hands and sobbed as if her heart would break.
"No, Harry...Ron..."
Hermione lost her boys in cold blood.
A/N: So, I hope this chapter cleared up everyone's suspicions. Kudos to whoever guessed right - there were a few of you - about Umbridge. Always hated her, but after Hallows - Ugh! Can't stand the evil wench. And don't worry - There will be more "present" interaction in the next chapter. This was a mixture of memories and things that went down years prior. Before everyone asks, I'll explain - the --five years earlier-- thing - No, Hermione does NOT remember that stuff. It was merely to inform you.
"To me, this story is reminiscent of Paycheck...where the main character loses his memory and his friend and love help him get it back..dunno if you drew inspiration from this," -cyr1988
Answer: You know, I've never thought of that. I've seen the movie, but no, it has nothing to do with it. A Dream Worth Keeping was actually inspired by - you'll all laugh - reality. I can genuinely envision everything that I'm explaining. Their bedroom is one I've been in before; the dresses and outfits she wears often are clothes that I myself wear; the jewels I describe are all real. The memories and ideas are simply my creative senses at work, but the setting and such comes from real places.
A Dream Worth Keeping is the work of fanfiction. The characters belong to J.K. Rowling, but the featured story is mine.