Hermione sat in her office at the Ministry and looked at the date in the document in her hands.
June 2nd 2003.
It's already been a month.
A whole month since she had been belittled by the man she loved, had had her heart broken and kicked Draco out of her life.
A long and miserable month where she felt sick at least twice a week, overslept more often than not, and cried at the smallest memory of her ex-boyfriend (good and bad).
At least my hair and nails look awesome – for some miraculous reason.
But she was annoyed, snapping at her friends and glowering like a wounded animal most days; the worst thing was she couldn't talk to anyone about it.
No one knew she had dated Draco for four years and a half, and if she told them now, she was certain they would all say she was better off without him.
Why did we keep it a secret? She asked herself. If everyone knew, it would make this break up easier.
But she knew very well why they hadn't mentioned their relationship to anyone.
At school it made sense, they had mutually agreed secrecy was the best option; her friends had already been fuming because she had chosen to partner up with Draco in Potions. Telling them she had also started to kiss and fuck him wouldn't have been taken well at all.
Once Hogwarts was behind them, Hermione recalled they had decided to keep the secrecy to avoid his parents' and, once again, her friends' drama.
Not to mention the media – they both knew there would be a lot of exploitation from the likes of Rita Skeeter if they were to reveal they were a couple – "The Golden Girl and the Death Eater, Love Potion or Imperius?" the damn woman would certainly write.
No. They hadn't needed that kind of attention.
But when he moved in with her, two years ago, and his parents had began to pressure him into finding a wife, she thought he finally would take her to meet them – properly, not a "watch-party with her being tortured in the drawing room" type of meet – but Draco had never brought that up.
And every time he whispered in her ear that he'd marry her, Hermione wished he either did it or stopped saying he would – for it had started to become clear that wouldn't happen.
She would be lying if she said she had never considered things might end up like they did – she had hoped they wouldn't, but she had to admit she had thought about it.
And that made her as mad at herself as she was at him.
She had known Draco since they were eleven, he had always been a prejudiced little shit, raised to be a Lord in title and attitudes, expected to marry as high as his own family and blood-status.
During the time they lived together, she read The Sacred Twenty-Eight Report monthly and found it both hilariously posh and very informative – a huge insight at her boyfriend's upbringing.
And honestly? The only fault she could find in The Sacred Families was their prejudice against muggles and muggleborns; because the values they prized – family, respect and honour – were not bad ones. And the families took them seriously.
Look at me finding positive things on the Sacred Twenty-Eight cult. Hermione shook her head.
"Hey, Mione." She suddenly heard a familiar voice calling her from the door of her office.
"Hi, Harry. Is it lunchtime already?" she made a face.
"Yes. Why? Are you feeling unwell again?" Harry asked concerned.
"A little." She lied – it was a lot. She had been nauseated that whole morning, not even water stayed down her stomach for long.
Harry exhaled loudly, letting her know to brace herself for a small lecture: "Promise me you'll go see a healer at St. Mungus, Hermione. Please."
She sighed, annoyed at his constant pleading for her to do that.
But he's not wrong. She heard her inner voice say.
"Fine." She sighed. "I'll leave earlier tomorrow and go to St. Mungus. Happy?"
Harry smiled. "Yep. You're my sister, Hermione. From taking down trolls to defeating the most powerful evil wizard of all times – you're my girl." He winked at her.
She laughed, shaking her head. "I won't be going to lunch today, Harry. Sorry."
He nodded, "I get it. Thank you for going to see a healer tomorrow. Let's just hope you're not pregnant." He joked on his way out, missing the small frown that slowly formed on her face, followed by terrified eyes.
Oh, shit.
After work, Hermione flooed home and ran to her bathroom, quickly finding a vial of pregnancy test potion she had brewed a while ago to have at hand "just in case" she might need one.
Well, she needed one now.
She unstoppered it and prickled her finger with a small needle, letting the drop of blood fall into the white liquid.
Pink: no reaction = not pregnant.
Yellow: reaction = pregnant.
She was supposed to wait two minutes for the reaction to occur, for it could take a while depending on how much Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) was there in the blood.
Fuck.
It was yellow – and it hadn't even been thirty seconds.
Her heart was about to leave her chest through her throat.
Again. Let's do another one. False-positives happen. She told herself, opening a second vial.
She then added the two drops of blood, stirred it a bit and... Yellow. Again.
"Fuck." She whispered, grabbing in a drawer a muggle pregnancy test and proceeding to use as per instructions.
Five minutes later, the eight red letters stared back at her just as intently as the two yellow potion vials beside it.
Pregnant.
"Holy shit." She whispered to the empty bathroom, lowering her hands to her belly in shock, recalling the stomach bug she thought she had caught a while ago – it hadn't been food poisoning, it was...
"A baby." she said, as if speaking it out loud made it less shocking.
Her thoughts went immediately to that child's father and her heart clenched.
Should I tell him? she wondered.
Draco was five months away from marrying the woman his family thought was perfect for him, the one that would embrace the Lady Malfoy title with grace, birth his pureblood heir.
His heir.
Fuck.
A cold shiver of fear ran up her spine: that baby represented the fall of the Malfoy pureblood line; who can tell what Lucius Malfoy will do if he learns a muggleborn is carrying his son's illegitimate heir?
"Hell no." Hermione said out loud then, touching her belly protectively.
It seemed motherhood instincts kicked in fast; she hadn't known she was going to be a mother for whole ten minutes and she was already wanting to protect the baby.
She started to think about her options and what she should do; one thing she knew for sure was there was no way she was going to consider an abortion. Terminating that pregnancy and going on with her life as if that had never happened was not something Hermione could do.
The war had taken everything from her: regular teenage years experiences, delayed her graduation by making her drop out of school for a year, made her own parents fear her.
She had no family.
Until now. She added, touching her belly and smiling.
Being a single mother in the wizarding world wouldn't be easy – and if that kid had bright blond hair it would be hard to deny their connection to the Malfoys.
But I can hide it for as long as possible and then move somewhere far away to raise them.
She would find a way. After all, she was Hermione Granger, she had fought the most dangerous wizard of all times, had been tortured, marked, and survived the final battle against death eaters, werewolves, giants and a lot more.
She had never chosen the path of less hardship before – she wasn't doing it now.
"Well, first thing you need to know, baby, is your dad is a big-headed spoiled idiot, but I love him." She felt a little silly speaking to her unborn baby for the first time. "And I love you. You were made with love – never doubt that." She sniffled; the sense of silliness being replaced by sheer happiness even if there were a hint of fear.
That night, Hermione laid her head on her pillow to sleep, wrapping her arms around the pillow beside hers, that one still smelled like Draco. Then she allowed her mind to take her down memory lane, to a night, while still at Hogwarts, when Draco and her had found out they shared a breeding kink.
FLASHBACK
Draco had her on all fours on a large bed in the Room of Requirement, where they were privately celebrating their first Valentine's Day together.
Hermione had worn a sexy lace nightdress for him – and also given him a box of his favourite chocolate bonbons – while he had gifted her a delicate, and clearly expensive, perfume.
"Fucking filthy mudblood." Draco groaned, pounding into her from behind, seeing the red marks of his hands on her asscheeks from the spanking he had already given her.
"Yes!" Hermione moaned in reply. "Please, sir, use me. Fuck me..."
That 'sir' went straight to his dick, and he added another palm-print to her ass.
"Yes!" she whimpered, her asscheeks burning deliciously from all the spanking.
"I'll make this cunt cum for me again." Draco said as he looked into her eyes in the mirror beside the bed; he watched her curvy body, all covered in sweat, cum and marks of his hands and teeth, writhing from all the pleasure he was giving her. "Fuck, Granger, stop clenching like that!" he tugged on her hair. "Fucking gonna make me lose it!" He fisted a hand in her messy sweaty curls and pulled her head back, snarling right in her ear: "Do you want me to fill you up with cum again, mudblood?"
"Yes! Aaah!" she moaned.
"Of course you do. That's the only way for you to have something pure in you." He pushed her head down onto the mattress, his hips never stopping the pounding he was giving her pussy.
"Yes! Give me your pureblood cum!" Hermione begged, loving when he fed her degradation kink – even though he hadn't felt comfortable doing so at first.
"I can't, mudblood." He said, biting back a moan as she clenched around him every time he used that awful word. "I can't cum in your delicious filthy cunt! What if a breed you?"
He noticed how she arched her back right then, moving her hips desperately towards him, his words making her go crazy.
"Oohh, you like that." He smirked, feeling his own body being taken by lust at the thought of breeding her. "You like the idea of my pureblood cock breeding your mudblood cunt?" He asked, feeling her answer in the way she trembled and creamed around him. "I'll do it, I'll fill you up until you're carrying my bastard!"
Her breath suddenly hitched and she was cumming around him, moaning as if in panic: "I'm not on the potion, sir. You'll breed me!" her fake-fear adding to their new-found kink.
"Fuck..." Draco groaned, although he knew she was on the potion and she was putting a show just for their pleasure, the thought of spilling inside of her and getting her pregnant had him about to blow his load. "I can't stop, Granger, I can't pull out."
"Ooh, but you'll breed me!" she moaned, lost in the feelings he was causing deep inside of her.
"Yes, yes, I will!" he growled. "Because I can't.pull.out!" he marked each word with a hard thrust.
"Oohh... don't pull out!" she whimpered, her pleasure never-ending.
"You want it, mudblood?" He moved faster. "You want me to fuck a baby into you?"
"YES!"
And he fucked her like an animal in heat, ramming into her until her cunt wrapped tightly around him, pulsing through another orgasm and he shot his cum right at her cervix, feeling her shivering as his climax triggered another orgasmic wave through her body.
"Holy shit, love." Draco gasped, feeling his cum dripping down her legs as he pulled out of her swollen pussy. "Fucking love you, Hermione." He said as he dropped onto the bed beside her.
She smiled, laying her head on his heaving chest.
"I love you too, Draco." She said between soft pants. "Happy Valentine's Day."
"The happiest so far, love." He replied, kissing her lips.
END OF FLASHBACK
When Hermione sat at the table to have breakfast the next morning, after calling in sick at work – something she felt no guilt in doing for she had never done it before –, she knew she needed to think of her next steps.
First of all: she had to see a healer.
However, there were spells that could easily identify who the baby's father was and she had already established that she couldn't risk the Malfoys learning about her child.
No. St. Mungus is too risky.
If she wanted to keep that pregnancy a secret for as long as possible, she'd need to do her prenatal check-ups the muggle way.
It wasn't that she didn't want to tell Draco she was carrying his baby – his heir.
It was more that she couldn't, and she wasn't – not really.
Astoria Greengrass would be the one to give Draco his legitimate heir and child.
And there was nothing Hermione could do to change that.