The Witness and the Wife-Chapter 25-The Snapes
By Marmalade Fever
Hermione took a deep breath. "This can't leave this room, you know that?" She waited for Ginny to nod again. "Malfoy and I are engaged."
The look on Ginny's face was priceless. Her wide mouth opened, closed, opened, and her eyebrows scrunched up, making her somewhat resemble Pansy Parkinson just before a sneeze. "You... Wait a moment. What?"
"Sit down before you hurt yourself," Hermione said, covering her mouth to hide her smile.
Ginny sat down hard on the bench seat nearby. "How on Earth..." she began, still gaping in a rather undignified manner.
Hermione sighed. "Well..." She shrugged. "That's actually a good question. It was all so dreadfully gradual, like a snail trying to wade through frozen molasses." Ginny rested her head in her hands and signaled for Hermione to go on. "At first we mostly just quarreled whenever we weren't in public... and sometimes when we were in public. Then, as time wore on, we started to get used to the situation and the fights decreased a bit, and... Ginny, why are you staring at me like that?"
"You're leaving out all the interesting details, aren't you?" she asked, raising one of her ginger eyebrows way up past her bangs. "When was your first kiss?" She raised an index finger into the air. "I demand to know!" she said melodramatically.
Hermione sighed. "Thank you so much for the vote of confidence, Gin. But it was either the second or third day into the program. We had gone to get an application for the bookstore we work at, and we were about to turn it in..."
"Go on," Ginny said teasingly.
"When Draco spotted Snape, turned to me, and kissed me as a 'distraction,' which caused me to swallow my gum wrong, and it ended up shooting across the room after some bloke performed the Heimlich Maneuver on me," she finished, crossing her arms and daring Ginny to comment.
The other girl was stifling a laugh. "That's got to be the worst first kiss ever! Not a very effective distraction either."
"Anyway," Hermione continued, "we had a little chit-chat with Snape which somehow resulted in an argument between myself and Draco about how I knew he liked me, and how he thought I was worthy of a laugh because of it." She briefly told Ginny about their first meeting in the pub, and how he had hugged her.
"That's certainly odd behavior," Ginny commented.
"He's always over-sentimental when he's drunk," Hermione mused.
"So about this cough drop thing, how did that happen?" Ginny asked, steadily seeming to relax into hearing the unexpected tale.
"Fidget invited us to a party, we were dancing, some poor guy tried to cut in, and Draco got all protective and told him we were married and expecting. Before we knew it, it seemed like everyone in town knew. So naturally we had to do something about it. We went to the ministry expecting them to have some other solution besides actually impregnating me." She shrugged. "And there you have it."
Ginny plopped down backward on the bench she was sitting on. "So..." she said, "and how did he end up proposing, hmm?"
Hermione looked guilty for a moment. "He didn't. At least, not exactly."
Ginny propped herself up on one arm. "What do you mean 'not exactly?' You didn't propose, did you?"
"Well, not exactly." Hermione squirmed slightly under Ginny's scrutiny. "See, I found an engagement ring in his sock drawer about two and a half months ago... and this morning—"
"This morning!" Ginny bellowed, shocked.
"He, er, kissed me... and then he went racing upstairs. And that was when Ron and Harry showed up, and I noticed that there was something in Draco's pocket, and his sock drawer was pulled out, and..." Hermione sighed. "First chance I got to be alone with him, I confronted him and said yes."
"Huh..." was the red-head's only comment. "Do you... have the ring?"
Hermione nodded. "In one of my suitcases. And, oh Ginny! It's so pretty. You're absolutely going to die when you see it."
"Why Hermione Granger, I didn't know you were so vain! First engaged to a pretty boy like Malfoy, and now this!" Ginny stuck her tongue out.
"Oh, you're just jealous because Harry hasn't..." Hermione stopped herself at the look on the other girl's face. "I'm so sorry. That was completely out of line."
Ginny sighed. "No, it's okay. One of these days he's going to get it into his head that I'm a big girl and can cope with a little danger. And you know that sooner or later he's going to vanquish all evil and we can live happily ever after."
Hermione gave her a brave smile. "And in that case, I guess I should get busy solving this whole clone thing, eh?"
Ginny laughed. "You just want to be alone with all the books, don't you? Miss them much?"
Hermione scowled, and stuck her tongue out.
Draco sunk into the rather massive bed that had formerly been two bunks, enjoying having enough room to spread himself out again. Before Hermione had run into him at the pub, he'd been hiding out with other Death Eaters, and consequently had not slept in anything larger than a twin since his last visit home to the manor. In fact, at one point between leaving school and his run-in with Hermione, he had actually had to sleep in a pile of leaves in someone's back yard. (He hadn't been especially happy about that, but it had certainly fed his discontented-with-the-world super-mood.) He sighed, imagining how pleasant it would be to have Hermione curled up beside him, snoring away into his arm... Well, maybe without the snoring. He rolled over and put the spare pillow over his head. He so needed to get to sleep.
When he did wake and find it to be a Monday morning, he was at a small loss as to what to do with himself. He could certainly feed himself, despite yesterday's pancake fiasco. But the question was, should he go to work? And what on Earth should he tell everyone? Should he really say that Hermione, moderately pregnant, had gone to visit her parents at the tail end of South America? Were pregnant muggle women even allowed to travel in whatever way muggles use to travel? What if he said they had come to visit, but in, oh, France or somewhere instead, and that he, "Derek," hadn't been invited? And the reason behind that? They had eloped and her parents were only just informed! There, that explanation seemed satisfactory. "Samantha" could win them over with the idea of a baby.
Great Scott... Hermione really did have parents out there somewhere that he would have to meet sometime. That thought brought a grimace to his face. Seriously, eek. Between the baby and the engagement, well, let's just say he'd never had a fear of muggle retaliation until just that moment.
With a subdued vigor, he made himself breakfast, ate it, and prepared to go out the door. He was actually relatively early. He was used to this because Hermione usually insisted on visiting Fidget in the mornings. With that thought in mind, he drove himself to the coffee shop in order to "test out" the little lie about Hermione's present location.
The bells above the doorway jingled and he came in, dusting some snow from his hair. "Just a mil Der!" Fidget said, scooting from the room into a kitchen-like nook. Draco approached the counter uneasily, preparing by running lines through his head. Behind him, the bells in the doorway jangled again. "Say, where's your wife today?" Fidget called, just before returning.
"She's—" Draco stopped when he registered the expression on her face.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy, where is your wife today?" Draco slowly turned around, coming face to face with none other than his former Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
Fidget dropped whatever it was she had gone to fetch. Her heavily make-upped eyes gliding from one of them to the other in pure shock.
"Now look here—" Draco began.
"No, you see here, Draco," Snape interrupted. He paused, though, as he looked toward the shocked girl behind the counter, whose eyes seemed to be brimming over.
"Is that your real name?" she asked Draco softly. He nodded mutely, looking down at the floor. "And you're..." she trailed off. "Anyone for coffee?" she asked meekly, turning swiftly around to grab the pot of regular with a shaky hand.
"Fidget," Draco said, somewhat pleadingly as he looked back and forth between the expressionless Snape, and the shaky-handed girl who was liable to burn herself at the moment.
Fidget set the pot down again, long lines of gooey mascara-tears streaking down her cheeks as she turned to face them. "Fiona," Snape corrected awkwardly. Draco was more than surprised as the older man reached into his pocket, pulled out a fresh-pressed handkerchief, and handed it to Fidget. He then turned to Draco, almost as if nothing had happened. "Where is Miss Granger? Or should I say, Mrs. Malfoy?" he asked, his upper lip curling.
"Out of town," Draco answered aloofly.
"I see. And would this out of town be back with misters Potter and Weasley?" From the corner of his eye, Draco could see Fidget mouthing the word Potter in silent wonder.
"Perhaps yes, perhaps no," he replied, doing his best to set up his occlumency barriers.
"Hmm," Snape replied.
"You mean you know Harry Potter?" Fidget asked suddenly, ringing her handkerchief in her hands.
Draco nodded. "He's in my year at Hogwarts," he replied, frowning.
"But, but how can that be? You're my age."
"Mr. Malfoy here is under the effects of an aging potion," Snape replied, not meeting Fidget's eye. "In reality he's seventeen," he said, in what almost sounded like a reprimand.
"And married and having a baby?" Fidget asked, looking in awe at Draco.
Snape suddenly looked alarmed. "Now that I did not know. A baby, Draco? Is that where the rush to wed a muggleborn came from?"
Thoughts flashed through Draco's mind like lightning. "Yes," he decided. "It was the least I could do. You on the other hand," he gestured to Fidget, "I don't know."
"Apples and oranges, Mr. Malfoy," Snape said dangerously.
"Peas and carrots," Draco corrected vehemently.
"I did not know Miss Puddifoot had been affected," Snape replied delicately.
"Is that what you're calling it these days?" Draco asked, amused.
"For your information Mr. Malfoy—" Snape began.
"So you really are my father?" Fidget asked, seeming to come out of a reverie.
Snape stopped, looking almost surprised to see her. "I suppose you could say..." Fidget stamped her foot, "yes," he admitted.
What happened next would stay in Draco's memory for all time. Fidget came out from behind her counter, took one hard look at Snape, and threw herself on him. Snape, caught off-guard, stumbled under her weight. Delicately he eased her off of him while wearing an expression that seemed to scream that no one had dared hug him in a very, very long time. He patted her arm. "You're very... tall," he commented.
"It's the heels," Fidget replied, positively beaming. "Oh, Daddy..."
A.N.: Sorry about the unconventionally long wait. At first I was just going to put it off for a few days, which turned into a week... And what with this, that, and an ear infection... lol You get the picture.