A/N: *soft sigh*
Give Unto Me
By Kittenshift17
Chapter 11: Exciting Enthrallment
"What's your next portkey out of the country?" Malfoy was asking the pretty witch at the International Transportation office. She was older than them by at least five years, but that didn't stop her eyeing Malfoy hungrily. Hermione rolled her eyes. He was still holding her hand, having refused to release her once they'd arrived at the Ministry, where he'd proceeded to drag her through the Ministry by the hand until they reached the office where they were now.
Hermione had caught several people looking at them with surprise and some concern, but she'd waved away the two lovely older gentlemen who'd made to come over and offer their assistance to her to get rid of the git clinging to her.
"The next Portkey to leave the Ministry is headed to Sri Lanka," the witch informed Malfoy. "It leaves in five minutes."
"We'll both be taking it," Malfoy told the lady.
"Passage is twelve galleons a piece," the witch said, and Malfoy handed her the right money. Hermione tried to protest having him pay for her.
"You can't pay for me to travel the world with you," she protested weakly when the witch let them both into the waiting station for the portkey.
"Hush, woman," Malfoy shushed her, still holding her hand. "I have more money than I could ever hope to spend, and I want to see the world before I have to knock you up."
"Doesn't explain why you're taking me with you," Hermione grumbled, trying to wriggle her hand free of his when she caught some foreign wizards eyeing them curiously.
"Because you've been unconscious for days after your boyfriend cheated on you," he shrugged. "And because you decided to shag me and have my kid as a favor to both of us to get our parents back. I mean, I'm not saying we're the best of friends, but even I'm not that big of an arse as to watch you suffer the worst week of your life without trying to help."
Hermione eyed him carefully. She was still mildly uncomfortable in his presence, despite the way their morning had gone. She was also horribly aware that she hadn't had time to get back to Harry.
"Kreacher?" she asked suddenly, and she smiled when the elf popped into the room beside her.
"Mistress?" Kreacher asked bowing low, "You summoned Kreacher."
"Yes, could you please let Harry know that I'll be out of the country for a little while with Malfoy? And that I'm sorry about this morning. I don't have time to send an owl," Hermione told the elf seriously.
"You is leaving miss?" Kreacher asked, stricken, "But Miss, Kreacher must take care of you!"
I'll be back Kreacher," she promised, "It will only be a few days."
"But Mistress you is needing to be getting pregnant with Master Draco's babies," Kreacher protested just as an announcement was made that the portkey to Sri Lanka would be leaving in one minute.
"We don't have to be in Britain for that, Kreacher," Malfoy interrupted. "But we should be back in four days."
Kreacher continued to look stricken.
"We have to go, Kreacher, but please pass on my messages to Harry. I'll see you in a few days, alright?" Hermione told him, moving with Draco – who still held her hand – over to the portkey (a bright pink Frisbee) and holding onto it.
Kreacher nodded his head, though his old eyes filled with tears. He Disapparated with a crack just before the Portkey activated, transporting them away. Hermione clutched Malfoy's hand ever tighter, clinging to him when they spun and spun across the world to land in Sri Lanka. She sprawled on the ground unceremoniously before she managed to roll on top of Malfoy.
"Right there, Granger?" he smirked at her when he found himself on his back on the grass with the little witch staring into his face and sprawled across his chest.
"Sorry," she muttered. "I really hate portkeys."
"That was a long one," he nodded. "We'll do small jumps for the rest of the trip, alright?"
Hermione nodded, getting off him quickly and to her feet, pulling him up by their joined hand.
"Hello and welcome to Sri Lanka," a Welcome Wizard greeted them. "Those of you here as tourists, please take the exit to your left and our helpful tour witches will assist you with your stay. Those residents of Sri Lanka, please exit to your right."
Hermione and Malfoy moved off through the left exit, where a pretty witch with a bright red bindi on her forehead was.
"Hello, welcome to Sri Lanka," she greeted them politely. "My name is Ravi, how may I direct your stay in Sri Lanka?"
"We're not staying long," Malfoy told the witch. "What do you recommend we see that will only take a few hours?"
"Just a day visit?" she asked. "Oh, you must visit the Sigiriya palace, followed by the Dambulla Cave Temple, and the Yala National Park where you will see elephants, and leopards on Safari. I will get you a guide so you can apparate between locations quickly if you wish?"
"Yes, do that," Malfoy nodded. "Do you take the same currency as in Britain?"
"We do at the Sri Lankan Ministry," the witch told him, "You will need to exchange some coins if you wish to purchase anything while in our country that you do not purchase through the ministry."
"Do you have an exchange desk?" Malfoy asked next.
"Yes, of course," Ravi told them. "Just over there. If you'd like to exchange your funds while I arrange a guide for you, you're more than welcome."
"Good show, then," Malfoy said, surprising Hermione with his older-gentleman-like statement before he dragged her over to the exchange desk.
He handed over ten Galleons in exchange for the Sri Lankan wizarding currency, smiling at the goblin running the desk.
"I'm also looking for a goblin-made silver bracelet," Hermione heard him tell the goblin. "Any idea where I can get one?"
The goblin eyed him coldly, refusing to tell him anything until Malfoy slipped him a few extra galleons. She was surprised when the goblin pulled one out of his coat pocket and handed it to Draco.
"You knew he sold them?" Hermione asked curiously, as Malfoy accepted the delicate silver chain from the goblin with a grin.
"While you were talking to Kreacher, one of the locals who was taking the Portkey was talking about it to his friend in the station," Draco shrugged.
Hermione blinked when he released her hand for the first time since they'd left Malfoy Manor startling her when he lifted her wrist before affixing the silver chain around her wrist.
"What are you doing?" she asked him curiously, feeling just a little bit suspicious.
"I'll have you know, Granger, that Malfoy men are far from stupid. I happen to know that when I knock you up, you're going to have comparably the best and worst nine months of your life. Magical pregnancies are hard and they drive witches totally bonkers. So I'm giving you a present in advance. And over the next four days, we're going to fill this thing with charms from everywhere we go and everything we see that strikes your fancy. Then, when you're pregnant and lamenting agreeing to do this and cursing my name and flinging things at my head, you'll be able to look at it and remember all the wonderful things we'll see and do in the four days before I take you home and knock you up."
Hermione stared at him incredulously, wondering if he really had lost his mind. Not that she didn't think it was an impossibly sweet gesture. She eyed the goblin-made silver glittering on her wrist, currently free of charms and she found herself smiling just the tiniest bit when he took her hand inside his again, leading her back over to the tour guide Ravi had found for them.
Hermione barely caught the wizard's name before they apparated to Sigiriya and were being shown through an ancient palace. She wanted to stop and look at everything. Wanting to read the history and the plaques all over the place but Draco rarely let her. There was simply too much to cover in so little time. She realized when she found herself on safari and discovered him aiming a camera – which he'd bought at the Cave Temple - at her face and snapping a picture of her with a herd of elephants in the background that he was doing his utmost to make this the trip of a lifetime while squeezing it into four days.
A thrum of excitement zinged through her blood at the idea that she had four days to get as comfortable with him as possible and to make this trip as memorable as could be. He'd already succeeded at taking her mind off Ron and Pansy. She was going to shag him for a week straight and Hermione realized she was going to have to be far more comfortable with him by then unless she wanted to get black-out drunk – which would be inconvenient, she supposed since she would have to continue to shag him for the following six days after that.
Grinning widely at him, Hermione snatched the camera from him, leaned over until she had her arm thrown around his shoulders, and aimed the camera at the pair of them. Malfoy was eyeing her curiously as she turned to face him in the picture, smiling widely at him as she snapped the picture. The flash went off and the camera printed out a copy of the image from the bottom of it. Hermione laughed as she released Malfoy again, snatching up the photo and waving it in the breeze until it dried.
She smiled at the way she was beaming at him in the picture while he blinked at her curiously, a small twitch of his lips indicating that he was pleased and thinking of smiling in return. In the back of the photo, she'd managed to catch the elephant herd milling around in the watering hole. She showed it to him cheerfully and he looked at it pensively for a moment. Hermione took it back from him and tucked it into the purse she was carrying, putting it with the others he'd taken so far since he bought the camera. Hermione turned the camera on him when she looked up and found him watching the elephants with a small grin on his face.
He glanced sideways at her midway through the shot and Hermione was very pleased with the image when it printed out because he continued to grin even as he looked at her behind the camera.
"Hungry yet?" he asked her when the Safari ended. He'd been buying charms for her bracelet all morning and Hermione already had one of an elephant, one of a leopard, and one that looked like the Sigiriya dangling from her wrist.
"Not really," Hermione admitted.
"Me neither. Let's go to the Ministry and see where we're headed next," he snagged up her hand once more, conjuring a neck-strap for the camera so she could use her other hand for anything she wanted.
They practically ran into the Ministry, thanking their guide and being directed to the Transportation office.
"When's your next portkey out of the country?" Draco asked, grinning at Hermione when she snapped a picture of him doing so.
"Portkey to China leaving in fifteen minutes," the witch told them. "Or one to Australia in twenty minutes."
Malfoy looked at her, raising his eyebrows and Hermione realized he was putting the decision to her.
"China," she told him. "I've already been to Australia."
"Two tickets to China, please," Draco told the witch before handing over the right money.
Pulling her into the station, Hermione was laughing as they waited for the portkey. The rest of the day followed much the same pattern. She ran a short length of the Great Wall of China and Draco had to drag her through the Forbidden City when she tried to stop and read everything – poorly, thanks to her very loose grasp on Mandarin. She added two new charms for both places to her bracelet before they had lunch.
Draco also paid a guide to let them see Pandas in their natural habitat after lunch and Hermione got a good shot of him when they went by the Chinese Dragon Sanctuary, holding a baby Chinese Fireball and nearly losing his eyebrows when the adorable little thing sneezed. Hermione actually did lose a chunk of her hair when she held one of the baby dragons, and Malfoy had managed to capture the shot perfectly to include her smile as she held the tiny reptile before her expression of surprise as it spat fire on her and her horror when she saw what became of her hair as result.
After that Draco had insisted on a dragon charm for the bracelet and he'd laughed the whole time while she had her hair cut to accommodate for the three inches worth of length the Fireball had robbed her of.
"It's kind of cute that length, actually," he told her when they'd popped over to Japan and swum with Giant Koi fish. He'd just bought her a koi-fish charm and Hermione blinked when she turned to him, finding him inside her personal space, his fingers coming up to tangle in the damp and unruly curls that now only just brushed her jaw rather than reaching beyond her shoulders.
She didn't scold him for the lie, knowing he was probably just trying to make her feel better. She also couldn't unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth, his hands curled over her ears and toying with the curls while they waited in line for their sushi order – which he'd insisted on trying. He watched her almost affectionately as she pouted about her hair.
"Oh, our sushi's ready," she said when he looked like he was about to lean in and kiss her.
He smirked as though he sensed her nervousness before he released her and turned to collect their sushi from the chef who'd been making it for them. He handed her some and Hermione bit into it automatically, her heart fluttering in her chest. She chewed mechanically before the taste and the texture of the food really hit her.
"Urgh!" she groaned, making a face and handing the sushi back to Draco before reaching for a napkin so she could spit it out. "That's disgusting!"
Malfoy was already on his second sushi roll and looked to be enjoying it immensely. So much so that he polished off her half-eaten one as well without even making a face about the fact that she'd chewed on it.
"What are you talking about? It's good," he argued with her, licking his fingers clean and smirking at her while Hermione tried not to gag on the flavor before resorting to buying herself a jasmine tea to wash away the horrid fishy taste.
"That was the foulest thing I've ever put in my mouth," she informed him primly. His expression suggested he could think of other, Weasley-related things that she might've had in her mouth that were nastier.
"I bet you crave this when you're pregnant," he replied instead.
"Even if I do, I won't be eating it. Sushi is primarily uncooked fish, which can be toxic to unborn children," she retorted.
"You know everything, don't you?" he asked suddenly. "You're not even pregnant, and hadn't thought to be until a few days ago, but you already know all about the condition and what you should and shouldn't do."
"That's not true," Hermione argued rolling her eyes impatiently when Malfoy decided he wanted more sushi before taking her to the Jigokudani Monkey Park. "I actually know very little about pregnancy. Other than what the healer told me the other day. It hasn't exactly been a priority study topic of mine. Weren't you saying that magical pregnancy is hard on witches? Why?"
Malfoy glanced at her as they moved off with their guide, still eating his sushi.
"You remember when you were a kid and your magic was out of control, ruled by your emotions?" he asked once he'd had a mouthful.
"Of course," she nodded.
"I'm told magical pregnancy brings all that back, only tenfold because in addition to triggering all the usual hormonal imbalances and things that pregnant women deal with it, there's a magical element. Your magic will go crazy and the baby will make it worse. Generally speaking, the more magically gifted the baby is likely to be, the harder the pregnancy will be on you," Malfoy explained to her, taking the tour guide's arm to let him apparate the three of them to the monkey park.
"Harder…." Hermione whispered to herself, paling at the very idea. Malfoy caught her expression before catching her hand and tugging her towards him a little as he led her over towards hot springs where the monkeys were. Hermione squeaked in surprise when she reached the railing and Draco moved around behind her, putting his arms around her waist and watching the monkeys over her shoulder. She realized he was doing it both as a reassurance and to keep her warm in the cold snowy mountain landscape.
"We're in for hell, Granger," he told her quietly, his mouth by her ear as he brushed his cheek against hers. "With how magically gift you are alone, you'd be in for hell. Combined with how gifted I am…. This will be the longest nine months of your life and you'll most likely never want to do it again after the first kid."
Hermione shivered in his hold, a pit of nervous dread opening up inside her stomach at the very idea. She didn't know if it was entirely from the fear of being pregnant and suffering terribly for it, or if it was merely his close proximity as she essentially hugged her from behind.
"How bad?" she asked. "Give me an example?"
"I'll be keeping all sharp objects away from you," he told her seriously. "You'll most likely flip out at nothing all the time. The usual instability of hormones in pregnant women is, I'm told, rather frightening. But when that is coupled with the magic-wielding ability, it's actually a dangerous situation. There's a reason the ratio of magical to muggle population numbers is so low. We're simply rarer because the pregnancies are harder. The statistics of miscarriage are higher as well. People simply don't risk it very often. It's why so many among the magical community are childless. Conceiving is hard enough, keeping the baby to term even harder. And I'm told that by the third-trimester witches are often so irrational about things that some have to be sedated and kept secluded for their own safety and that of others."
"You think that will happen to me?" Hermione asked him, fearful now.
"It's possible. No one can really predict how a magical pregnancy will play out. The only thing I know for sure is that generally speaking, the more stable the witch during the pregnancy, the more likely it is that the kid will be a Squib or not very magically gifted," Malfoy told her.
Hermione had a terrible sense that he knew that because some of his ancestors had learned it the hard way and that everyone since then had practiced less than savory dealings to avoid such an embarrassing occurrence in such a pure bloodline.
"And if my pregnancy is run-of-the-mill dull?" Hermione asked him quietly.
"Don't take that tone with me, Granger," he told her harshly. "It's highly unlikely that two such powerful magic users would throw a Squib, but if that were the case, we would simply deal with it. I'm not going to force abortion on you or anything so barbaric."
Hermione relaxed minutely in his hold, her attention on the monkeys before them as they played in the water, soaking in the steaming springs. She blinked when the flash of a camera went off and Hermione smiled when their guide came over, handing her a picture of the two of them, dressed inappropriately for the snowy weather, Draco's arms wrapped around her and pressing her into his chest. From an outside point of view, they looked like a happy young couple in love and on their honeymoon.
Smiling at the picture, Hermione tucked it into her bag alongside the rest of them. She would need to buy an album wherever they went next so she could begin storing the pictures they'd taken and captioning them appropriately with where they were. Mostly, Hermione knew, they were each taking this trip together for the selfish notion of living life thoroughly and experiencing things they wouldn't otherwise when they had a child together, but she still wanted to compile an album of the trip.
One day she might be able to show it to their child.