A/N: *Burst into the room in an explosion of confetti*
*Grins, wiggling her eyebrows*
"Happy New Year, everyone!"
*Does a happy dance, with booty wiggles*
*Presents the chapter on a silver platter*
*Blows kisses and runs away to peek from behind a pillar while you read*
xx-Kitten.
Tip of My Tongue
By Kittenshift17
Chapter 45
"Merciful Merlin, Morgana and Nimue! Draco Lucius Malfoy, that is a hearth rug! What do you think you're doing!?" Narcissa Malfoy gasped, her eyes widening in horror as she stepped out of the fireplace at Miss Granger's house to find her son and the mother of her grandson rutting like rabbits on the living room floor.
Miss Granger emitted a shriek even as Draco flipped her, rolling on top of her to protect her modesty – and hopefully Narcissa's eyesight.
"Mother," Draco replied stiffly, his bare arse on full display as he caged Hermione in beneath him, the two of them very much mid-coitus. "Can you give us a few minutes, please?"
Well, Narcissa sniffed, stalking out of the living room and into the kitchen, at least the boy still remembered his manners. When she stalked into the kitchen, she could hear Miss Granger beginning to giggle and it took Narcissa more self-control than she was sure she possessed to maintain her dignity and keep from laughing, too. Of all the things to walk in on! Narcissa could hardly believe it. And there they'd both been protesting that there was nothing going on between the two of them all this time.
The nerve of them, lying to her like that. Obviously, there was very much something going on and obviously, Narcissa would have to bring forward her plans to see Draco properly and officially courting Miss Granger, as was proper for a man of his pedigree. And after all the wretchedness they'd been putting in the papers, too! Wouldn't this just be the icing on the cake? Miss Granger, a muggleborn witch, associated with their family and so soon after the scandal of Aurelian's paternity being brought into the light and everything with Astoria. Though that was another bag of goblins all on its own, she sighed.
Narcissa could already see the headlines about love-triangles and infidelity, and given the state of Narcissa's luck lately, she'd just bet her foolish son was in the other room at this very moment, impregnating Miss Granger all over again. And then where would they be, with another lovechild on the way?
It was unacceptable.
No. She would most definitely be forced to bring her plans to see them wedded forward with all haste and hope they would quietly cooperate, as they ought, rather than continuing to rattle on about not caring for one another and being ill-matched. One did not practice coitus on hearth rugs with an ill-matched partner, thank you very much, indeed!
Shaking her head, Narcissa invited herself to the dining table, awaiting her son and the woman she wouldn't be terribly opposed to having as a daughter-in-law now that Astoria was somewhat out of the way. She wouldn't mind a cup of tea, actually, but it would be impolite to fetch one herself.
"Mistress!" Della, the elf Narcissa had ordered into Miss Granger's care when she'd learned of Aurelian's existence suddenly appeared, bowing low and flapping her ears nervously. "Della makes tea for you, Mistress?"
"That would be lovely," Narcissa agreed readily, hoping the children wouldn't be too long in the other room.
Drumming her nails on the tabletop, Narcissa waited impatiently while the elf fixed a pot of tea.
"Mother?" Draco asked, squaring his shoulders as he strode into the kitchen a short time later, looking only so ruffled as he might after a day in the field and looking nothing like he'd just been caught by his mother shagging a witch, not his wife, on the living room rug in a house he didn't own.
"Son," Narcissa inclined her head as the elf brought her a pot of tea and poured it expertly.
"What are you doing here?" Draco demanded, crossing his arms over his chest but giving no other sign of his irritation at having been interrupted in the middle of something that Narcissa suspected they'd both been enjoying very much.
"I could ask you the same thing, darling," Narcissa responded mildly, trying to keep from sounding accusing or overly smug.
Not that it was easy. In the five years since she'd learned of Aurelian's birth, Narcissa had spent a good deal of time in the company of Miss Granger and while at first the young woman had seemed uncouth and her blood status had suggested to Narcissa that she ought to be a lesser witch, she had proved to be anything but. Bright. Humble. Hard-working. Kind. Courageous. Hermione had proven to be all the things Narcissa had once been taught a woman of superior birth and good breeding ought to be, and she'd proved to be a fierce and fearless mother. It hadn't been easy on the girl to face the world alone as a single mother in a society so deeply steeped in tradition and demanding that she marry, or at the very least divulge the name of the man who'd got her in the family way out of wedlock and left her in the lurch.
There had been many times that Narcissa had feared all of her own hard work would come crashing down should it be learned that Miss Granger had hidden away Draco's firstborn son. She had feared the stink of her muggle blood might waft from Miss Granger and linger over the rest of them when they had worked so hard to claw back the respect and prestige owed to a family of the Malfoy bloodline and wealth. She needn't have worried. Miss Granger was well-thought-of in her chosen field, even by those who muttered that a mother's place was in the home attending her children rather than in the workplace, and occasionally by those who would otherwise turn their nose up at something so uncouth as a mudblood existing in their vicinity.
"I should think it obvious," Draco drawled in response to her question, smirking at her in a way reminiscent of Lucius at his cheekiest and Narcissa sipped her tea to hide her amusement, not about to give him the satisfaction of embarrassing her.
"Indeed," she answered delicately. "Do remember to lock the Floo next time you seek to endanger Miss Granger's fine reputation as an upstanding witch, won't you?"
Draco's smirk disappeared and his left eye twitched and Narcissa primly set her teacup back in its saucer, pleased she could still unsettle him after all these years.
"Your business here?" he challenged.
"I was looking for you," Narcissa said quietly, setting aside their mutual posturing and furrowing her brow. "There has been… a development."
"The boys?" Miss Granger gasped, hurrying into the room and looking nowhere near as put together as Draco.
Her shirt was on inside out and she'd attempted to tame her wild curls by pulling them all up into a messy bun, but the effect made her looked decidedly well-shagged, rather than put together.
"The children are fine," Narcissa held up her hand before their panic could manifest. "There has been no change in either of them since this morning."
"Then what?" Draco asked. "Obviously we're already aware that Granger has been released from the hospital."
Narcissa pursed her lips for a moment, wondering if this might have been a discussion best faced tomorrow after a good sleep and a hearty breakfast.
"Astoria is awake," she said finally when the tension in the room grew unbearable while she debated on whether she really ought to tell them.
"She's going to survive?" Hermione asked, frowning heavily.
"Evidently," Narcissa nodded. "She was only briefly awake, but she has revived from her coma and is simply sleeping, or so the Healers have reported. She…"
Shaking her head and sipping more of her tea, certain that she didn't want to continue the sentence she'd begun but supposing that she really would have no choice, in the grand scheme of things, now that she'd begun, Narcissa sighed quietly.
"She what?" Draco asked coolly.
"She's been asking for you," Narcissa admitted, looking at Draco seriously and seeing the confliction fester in his grey eyes.
"Why?" he frowned.
"Well, dear, before she was abducted, you were her husband," Narcissa reminded him.
"She signed the divorce papers," Draco argued.
"Yes, well," Narcissa sniffed, leaning back in her chair, her ankles crossing in irritation. "About that."
"What?" Draco asked. "What do you mean, 'about that'? There is no 'about that, Mother. She signed the bill of divorcement. We're through."
Miss Granger had gone very pale and Narcissa suspected that having had nothing better to do whilst held in quarantine and unable to hold her sons or leave the hospital, Hermione, at least, had been keeping well appraised of the daily reports the newspaper staff kept coughing up.
"Legal action has been sought by Galina Greengrass on behalf of her daughter surrounding Astoria's signature of the divorce papers under duress," Narcissa divulged. "Horatio contacted your Father and I about it this afternoon. With Astoria's awakening, Galina means to challenge the divorcement. They're arguing that, as Astoria was infected with the Fairy Virus at the time of the signing, and as it can be construed that I may have suggested some ill fate may befall her if she did not sign, she was in no fit state to make any binding legal decisions."
Draco's face paled slowly, his brow furrowing while his hands clenched into fists. Narcissa held her breath, noting that Miss Granger had to good sense to back away from Draco rather hastily. And good thing, too. The explosion of magic that burst from her son as he bellowed in fury and impotent rage shattered every glass item into the room, including Narcissa's pot of tea, much to her disappointment.
"No!" Draco hissed.
Narcissa nodded, though she was no more pleased about it than Draco.
"Horatio informs us that the argument won't be dismissed out of hand."
"I'm fucking divorced!" Draco snarled. "We're done. She signed the papers, and it's over. I can't…"
Narcissa sighed, looking over at Miss Granger, who had covered her mouth and looked like she might dissolve into tears – a new expression on her in Narcissa's memory.
"Draco, darling," Narcissa attempted to soothe her son.
"She cheated on me, Mother!" he hissed. "And I did my duty and fucking rescued her, even though it would've been better for everyone if I'd just left her there to die, and now this? Both of my sons are in the fucking hospital and might not live out the bloody year, for all I know, and now you're telling me that my cheating whore of an ex-wife will not only live to cause further drama but is going to challenge the divorcement? What could she possibly hope to achieve? It's all over the papers. There'll be no keeping this quiet. No living it down!"
"Currently Astoria is still too unwell to make such decisions as to renege on the agreement to divorce, herself," Narcissa sighed. "But Galina has sought legal action and will pursue it with all the rabidity of a mongrel mutt, money-grubbing bitch that she happens to be. Archibald made an investment that went sour recently, so I expect they're going to make as much noise as might be necessary for us to pay them to go away. Given that the abduction has resulted in Astoria's miscarriage and brutal assault, the evidence of the affair is rather more lacking than it was before all of this. They would not be… without precedent."
Narcissa closed her eyes when another explosion of magic escaped him even as Draco lunged at the nearest wall and buried his fist in the plasterboard, too furious for words.
~O~
He seethed all night, long after Narcissa left. He seethed and he paced and he was muttering to himself in fury as Hermione had never heard him do before. When she managed to coax him out of the kitchen, she tiptoed back inside to repair the glass he'd broken and the hole he'd punched in the wall.
"Fucking ridiculous," Malfoy muttered, striding past the doorway into the kitchen while Hermione quietly made them both a cup of tea. "I should've let her die. I should've just stayed in France and let the stupid cow die."
"You don't mean that," Hermione said quietly.
"Like hell, I don't!" he snarled, curling his lip when she carried a fresh pot of tea into the living room along with two cups.
"She's Scorpius's mother, Malfoy," Hermione reminded him.
"So?" he growled. "You've been more mother to the boy in recent months than she has been."
"That's hardly fair," Hermione frowned. "She's been in a coma, Draco. And before then, she'd been kidnapped, and before that, she was suffering from the Fairy Virus. You can't blame the woman for experiencing some rather unfortunate fates. It's not as though she chose any of them for herself and wilfully neglected Scorpius."
"You had the virus too," he reminded her.
"Yes, but I wasn't pregnant," Hermione reminded.
"No, because you're not an invidious hag," he spat.
"Malfoy, you can hardly blame the woman for getting pregnant," she argued.
He stopped dead, turning to scowl at her furiously.
"It wasn't my fucking kid, and she was my wife! I most certainly can blame her for letting Pucey shoot her full of his troll-spunk," he snarled.
Hermione sighed, sitting down at the table and pouring herself a cup of tea. She fixed him one as well, though she doubted he would drink it, given how agitated he was. He was more likely to hurl it across the room, the mood he was in.
"Perhaps you ought to go to the hospital and simply talk to her, Malfoy?" Hermione suggested. "After all, this challenge of the divorce has come from her mother, not from Astoria herself. She might confirm she's happy to proceed with the divorce as planned, and you might be pacing a hole in my carpet for nothing."
He scoffed.
"Obviously you've had little to do with my ex-wife up until now," he sneered. "What her mother commands, Astoria does. If Galina tells her to fight the divorce by arguing that she was indisposed or duress, she will do it."
"You can't know that," Hermione sighed. "The poor thing was kidnapped on your father's order and repeatedly raped and tortured, Malfoy. I hardly think she's going to open herself up to the added exposure and scandal of fighting this. If your lawyer is worth his salt in the slightest, he could have an absolute field day decimating her mind, the state she's in."
"They want money, Granger," he reminded her. "They've always wanted money. It's why she married me in the first place."
"Oh, and you married her for love?" Hermione scoffed. "You forget that our son was conceived when you got rip-roaring drunk, ranting about being forced to marry her for the sake of buying back credibility after your family's role during the war."
He speared her with a hateful glare.
"Don't fucking start, Granger," he warned.
"I'm just saying that I think you're being a bit unreasonable, Malfoy," Hermione held up her hands placatingly.
"You think so?" he scoffed. "We'll see if you still feel that way when they go after you."
"Me?" Hermione laughed. "What can they possibly do to me?"
"You birthed my love-child, Granger. I was engaged to her when we fucked that night," he reminded her. "And if this challenge is legitimate, I've fucked you several times since, whilst still married to the bitch."
"Your marriage contract allows for canoodling with the mother of your child," Hermione argued. "Which I just so happen to be."
"Tenuous," he shook his head, turning and pacing away from her. "They'll paint you a villain in the press, you know that don't you?"
"The doting woman who's been lovingly mothering both of your sons while your wife has been convalescing?" she challenged. "They've already run the presses ragged with love triangle speculations and all the dirty secrets about Aurelian's paternity, our supposed affair, me being a home-wrecker. What else can they possibly say?"
He turned back to her.
"Supposed affair?" he scoffed. "Granger, you've got my come trickling down your thigh as we speak. There's nothing supposed about it. We had an affair."
"So did Astoria. The papers are full of Magdalena Pucey's outrage and Adrian's disgrace," Hermione shrugged.
"You really think that will make a difference?" he rolled his eyes. "I'm a cold-hearted cunt, Granger. Everyone knows that. They'll paint her as the mistreated and bored house-wife, looking for all the love I wasn't giving her in the arms of an old boyfriend. I'm the villain here."
"You didn't force her to have an affair," Hermione frowned at him.
"I didn't do anything to encourage her to spend her affection on me, either," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Granger, you don't understand…. If they negate the legitimacy of that divorce agreement, Astoria can challenge me for custody of Scorpius. If she fights the claim and it goes to court, they might grant her sole custody."
"After what she's been through?" Hermione shook her head doubtfully. "I'd be surprised if they left her out of the hospital before the new year, Malfoy. She's been tortured. Lost her baby. Been raped. The effects such things have on the mind… she'll be diagnosed with PTSD, for sure. And that's if her mind didn't fracture under the Cruciatus curse like what happened to poor Frank and Alice Longbottom. In order to be granted custody, she would have to prove physically and mentally capable of being the primary carer for Scorpius, the likelihood of which is minuscule, at best."
Hermione's stomach twisted uncomfortably when the look he gave her was pitying.
"Hermione… they're rich," he said softly. "They could pay a Healer to sign off on a clean bill of health tomorrow, even while she's still practically dead in that hospital bed."
"A second opinion would need to be sought," Hermione argued. "You could contest such a ruling. And if they're doing this for the money… well… they can't pay people off forever. I'm certain the Malfoy bank vaults run a lot deeper than the Greengrass's."
Malfoy ran his hands through his hair and looked away, sighing heavily.
"There is that, at least," he nodded.
Hermione bit her lip, wondering if she ought to say more. Wondering if it might not be better if they both simply went to bed. Wondering if she ought to send him home to Malfoy Manor where the scandal of their apparent affair might be less evident. She was tired, after all. She missed her son. She wanted to hold him and she wanted life to be easier; to be happier. She wanted for Aurelian and Scorpius to recover and she wanted things in the papers to settle down. She wanted peace for Astoria and justice against Dolohov and Lucius. She wanted to bring this infuriating, wonderful, wretched and brilliant man who'd sired her son to ravish her again.
"Perhaps a shower might be in order," she suggested tentatively noting the state of him. He'd been too angry after his mother's departure for home to worry about such things, but the hour had grown late, and much to her slight revulsion, he was right about the state of her thighs, at present.
He looked over, frowning rather than offering that smirk she'd grown to enjoy.
"Was that an invitation?" he quirked an eyebrow, looking rather like he didn't know how she could be thinking of such things now, but also like he rather hoped it was.
Hermione considered it for a moment, looking him up and down. He really did look terrible. His encounter with the dragon had left him looked worse for wear, but it was the evident exhaustion and worry and stress hanging upon his face and bracketing his mouth that truly jumped out at her.
"I suppose," she answered. "Unless you mean to continue shouting and muttering and pacing?"
He looked momentarily guilty, and then angry before his expression morphed into one of petulance that Hermione had so often seen on Aurelian's face. It made her heart ache.
"The nerve of these wretched people, Granger," he complained, shaking his head and looking rather like he might stamp his foot like an indignant child. "Can I not simply have all of the things that I want without hardship and torment?"
Hermione chuckled softly despite suspecting that he was entirely serious.
"I'm afraid, Draco," she said imperiously as she rose to her feet and headed for the stairs and the upper-level bathroom. "You're not longer a spoiled little boy who can simply make demands and have the entire world move to see them met."
"Seems unreasonable," he grumbled, following her.
"Now you know how the rest of us feel," she said.
"You really think they'll declare her unfit? That we could out-spend their bribery to have it declared otherwise?" he asked quietly, his worry evident even as he followed her into the bathroom and began stripping out of his hunting attire while Hermione pulled her shirt off over her head.
She realised as she did so that it was on inside out, and that it obviously had been since Narcissa had interrupted them in the living room. Her cheeks warmed at the very thought.
"Unless your father has made similarly unfortunate business dealings as your father-in-law," Hermione answered.
"Father's judgements have hardly been sound, of late," Malfoy admitted, frowning deeply. "I should have let her die, Hermione. I should've left her there and just let it rest."
"The press would never have let it rest," she reminded him, stepping into the shower once she was naked.
"They could've been quietly paid to shut up about it when Mother and Father weren't implicated," he said.
"Had you not made every effort to rescue her, you would've been implicated, Malfoy," Hermione reminded him. "You had the most motive."
"But no guilt," he pointed out. "They'd have investigated and as I wasn't the one who kidnapped her, I would've been found innocent, in time."
"Would've still been embroiled in scandal, since you were… where were you when she was taken?" Hermione frowned up at him.
He glared at her.
"I was here," he narrowed his eyes at her. "Flying around in the backyard with the boys while you were trying to sleep off the early signs of that bloody virus. I even fed the kids too much ice-cream for lunch and they got sick."
Hermione nodded, remembering and realising she must be tired if she'd managed to forget.
"Right," she muttered, stepping into him and laying her cheek against his chest. He was still covered in bandages, charmed to protect against getting wet while he washed, but Hermione didn't mind.
She closed her eyes and leaned against him, wishing she could go back to that day, if only because her son had been safe and happy and laughing, having fun with his father and his brother for one of the first times in his life. And when another tear trickled from the corner of her eye while she clung to Malfoy a little tighter, Hermione pretended it was just water from the shower, and let it wash away down the drain, wishing all of her worries could do the same.
