Redemption
by Cherry Lychee
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all the characters, settings, and situations you recognize from the Harry Potter series. The rest is mine.
Author's Note: Thank you, tnf, for that long review (I love those!). You raised some very important points, but you were right, there's a lot I haven't mentioned yet, so you'll just have to keep reading to find out. I'm bad, aren't I? ^_^ And of course the baby will be blonde! I kinda like the name "Arizona," actually…
Special thanks also to ashantifan1, for adding me to her favorites, Crystalline Lily, Pandora, Kate, porkypop, exlibris, Slim-Shady's-Modeling-Baby, Sweet Sorrow, and Rebecca (Guess I'll leave it at PG-13 for now. Snow day means no school, right? Well, be thankful for small blessings ^_^ Actually, I think you're lucky. I haven't seen snow my entire life).
Chapter three, the much-awaited reunion. I'm sorry it's a bit shorter than usual, but I am suffering from major writing block. Future installments will definitely be longer. Enjoy, and leave a review on your way out, okay?
Chapter Three: Damn this Kid's Father!
When Hermione didn't show any visible reaction to a blonde-haired youth with the Death Eater badge pinned to his midnight black robes entering her room through the window, Draco thought she hadn't seen him. Then he realized that he was right in her line of vision, but she was looking through him, as if he didn't exist.
What's going on? he silently wondered, blinking. Has she gone blind or something?
And then it hit him. He hadn't removed the Invisibility Spell!
"Optemitrus!" said Draco sharply, embarrassed at his own stupidity, and the spell wore off.
At the sound of a familiar voice muttering an incantation, Hermione thought she was hearing things. When Draco Malfoy appeared in front of her as suddenly as if he'd just Apparated, or cast aside an Invisibility cloak, she knew she had gone crazy.
Hermione closed her eyes, sighing tiredly.
Draco was thoroughly bewildered. He'd been expecting a "What in the bloody blue blazes are you doing here, you slimy git?" or, at the very least, a scream, but not this.
"Granger?" he ventured, careful not to call her by her given name.
Hermione's eyes snapped open and she stood up so abruptly that it wouldn't have surprised her if she'd gone into early labor. This was no hallucination. The father of her unborn child was right in front of her, his gray eyes looking her up and down. Her gaze traveled to the wand in his hand, then to the silver badge pinned to his chest… a skull, with red rubies for eyes, and a snake protruding from its mouth like a venomous tongue… the Dark Mark. The emblem of the Death Eaters.
"Don't come near me," she whispered, overcome with a mixture of shock and nausea. She knew she should scream, warn the other girls that a servant of You-Know-Who was in the house, but she didn't have the strength. Her knees suddenly felt very weak.
Draco was at loss for words. This pale, trembling female, looking at him with horrified eyes, was not the Hermione Granger he had known at school, the feisty, courageous girl who would've hexed him as soon as she saw him.
"Look, Granger…" he trailed off, too confused by his own muddle of thoughts to produce a coherent sentence.
Her vision was fast becoming blurry. "Don't…" was the last thing she said before blackness claimed her and she slipped into welcome oblivion.
With the reflexes born of his Dark training, Draco leapt forward and caught Hermione before she hit the floor. He stayed completely still for what seemed like hours, aware of nothing else but the young warm body he held in his arms. Memories came rushing back to him in a flood, memories of feverish caresses and urgent kisses, an alcohol-induced act of love consummated in the Astronomy Tower, witnessed only by the stars in the night sky.
The indistinct noise of a door slamming shut somewhere in the house brought Draco back to his senses. He straightened and made a face. Hermione wasn't exactly as light as a feather due to the extra burden she carried, but there had been a time when it hadn't taken much effort on his part to carry her up the stairs leading to the tower…
Stop that! commanded a voice inside his head that, strangely, sounded like his mother's.
"Gotcha, Mum," muttered Draco, racking his brains for a way to get out of the house undetected. He'd originally planned on Stunning Hermione, then tossing her over his shoulder and exiting the way he entered, but that was before he knew of her condition. He couldn't treat a pregnant woman like that.
For a fleeting instant, Draco glanced at her round belly and cursed the baby's father. The horny bastard, whoever he was, had just made Draco's work harder for him!