Dear Harry and Ron,
I don't know why I'm writing this to the both of you but since you're usually together, I figured this might be the best way.
I know it's been a long time since we talked; three years the last time I checked. I'm sorry for not keeping in contact but it's hard enough for me, keeping up with a house, a husband and a job. But I have some news: now I will also have a family to look after.
Yes, I'm pregnant. It wasn't planned or anything but I'm in my mid- twenties now; I think it's about time I get started on a family. I've always wanted a large family and I guess this is as good a place to start as any.
Please be happy for me. I really want to rekindle our friendship. We had such good times during our years together and I really don't want to lose that. Please owl me back as soon as you get this and let me know how you all are. With love, Hermione.
She stopped writing and re-read the letter. Something just didn't sound right. Should she wait to send the letter or mail it now and get it over with? It was a big decision and she was having a difficult time making it.
It was the Sunday after the celebration. Both Mrs. Granger and Narcissa Malfoy had gone home pretty intoxicated. The husbands dutifully followed and Hermione could help but laugh at the dejected look on Lucius' face; finally something he feared had happened right under his suspicious nose and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Hermione and Draco spent much of the night up in the sitting room, going over names they thought were fitting and names they thought were outrageous.
"Who names their kid Gouda?" crowed Draco near the break of morning. "Or veal? If you name our child Bologna, I will leave you, I swear it."
Hermione was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down her cheeks. The prospect of the future Malfoy generation having names like "Veal", and "Gouda" were too funny for her to comprehend. "Wouldn't your father love that?" she giggled.
They had gone to bed near five in the morning and Hermione had awoken around noon to find Draco up and dressed. She had ate a quick lunch ("You're eating for two now," Draco ordered) and started her letter to Ron and Harry. After many drafts, she could only come up with what sounded pathetic to her ears. It wasn't easy, writing to friends you haven't spoken to in so long. Any passerby would have thought they had gotten into a fight the previous time they spoke but this was not the case. In fact it was quite the opposite.
"We'll always be friends," Harry had vowed as he pressed his forehead against Hermione's. Ron joined them, and repeated Harry's promise.
"Always," he echoed.
Hermione had felt the fullest when she was with her friends. Not that her relationship with Draco was unfulfilling but it's a different kind of friendship you share with your husband than your childhood friends. .
Hermione tucked the letter away, deciding to look it over later. Some days the words just flowed out of her and others it seemed that a barrier had been put up in her mind that blocked all logical thought from getting through. It would be better to wait for one of those logical days before accepting the letter as it was.
She leaned back at her desk and stared out the window in front of her. The rain that had been promised for the weekend was now delivered; it came down in heavy buckets, quite the opposite from yesterday's weather. Hermione was glad it had waited. She didn't like being with Lucius Malfoy outside in a wide-open space; being cooped up with him under a roof would be twice the pain.
Squinting her eyes into the distance, she noticed something flying towards the house. "A broom, a carpet, a U.F.O.?" she questioned as it flew towards the house. She saw the owl soar into an upstairs window and she scrambled up to the bedroom to see whom it was from.
Draco was in the basement tinkering with something that he had bought in Diagon Alley a few weeks ago. It was similar to a Muggle air hockey table but kept shooting heavy aims of the little disk at its unsuspecting player. Draco had almost received two black eyes from the machine already, yet he continued to try and figure out what went wrong.
The letter that had arrived bore the Hogwarts crest; Hermione felt a swell of pride and joy burst into her heart as she ripped open the envelope. The writing was tiny and lopsided; she couldn't remember seeing it before.
"Dear Ms. Granger," she read to herself, sitting on the bed with one foot tucked under her. "It is with the lightest of hearts that I congratulate you on your expectant bundle of joy. We are most pleased here at Hogwarts upon hearing the news, especially since one Lucius Malfoy took such pain in telling us. We wish you the best." The letter was signed with signatures from every Hogwarts' professor, starting with Professor Dumbledore's in the same precise, tiny writing. Hagrid's was large and sloppy and contained a loopy happy face; Professor McGonagall's was straight and upright and reminded Hermione heavily of the professor herself.
She smiled, holding the letter close to her heart. Professor Dumbledore knew how much Hogwarts meant to her and if she couldn't share this experience with Ron and Harry, the least she could do was share it with the staff at Hogwarts.
She had just sat down and begun to write back when a yelp of pain could be heard from several floors below. She stood up and rushed for the stairs just in time to see Draco staggering around blindly.
"Damn thing hit me in the eye!" he cried, holding his left eye. "And apparently it talks, too. Told me I was a worthless loser."
"What did you do to it?" Hermione asked, descending the staircase, staring down her husband with a look. He grinned sheepishly and ducked his head.
"Kicked it."
Hermione nodded knowingly. "So it threw a disk at your eye; do you blame it?"
"No."
Hermione tended to Draco's eye and he escaped without any bruising or cuts. After that, she considered going back upstairs to try and finish her letter to Hogwarts but she felt that the creativity had temporarily abandoned her mind. Instead, she curled up on the sofa in front of the fire in the sitting room and watched as the lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder rumbled through the house as Draco's cries of anger and pain floated up from the lower level.
The next few weeks passed in something of a blur to Hermione. She had told select people at work that she was pregnant and they all reacted with big smiles and congratulatory hugs. Narcissa and Mrs. Granger were forever dropping by with little outfits they had seen that they thought were adorable or things that they felt Hermione would need to keep her strength up. Her boss had lightened her schedule considerably, giving Hermione plenty more free time at home to organize and start preparing a baby's room.
She still had written to Harry and Ron. She assumed that if Professor Dumbledore knew about it, Harry and Ron would weasel it out of him somehow; they kept in very close contact with their old professors, or at least they did the last time Hermione had spoken with them.
The baby's room had been chosen and was being prepared in pale green and yellow. "They're neutral colours," Hermione explained to Draco as she pasted up wallpaper with her wand. Little yellow ducks decorated the pale green strips and little green frogs garnished the yellow strips. "That way, it doesn't matter if we have a boy or a girl; the colours are unisex."
That sparked another conversation: did Hermione want a boy or a girl? On the outside, she said it didn't matter, as long as they baby was healthy. But on the inside, she was secretly hoping for a girl. She couldn't wait to dress up her daughter in little dresses.
Draco, however, was adamant that he wanted a boy. "It would be so cool to dress him up in baby Quidditch robes!"
"You can dress a girl in Quidditch robes, too," Hermione replied indignantly. "Both males and females play the sport."
Draco had just looked suddenly sullen, a flash of his days at Hogwarts forming over his head. He had played on the Slytherin Quidditch team and no girls participated in the sport. Hermione couldn't blame him for being narrow-minded in that area.
Every day, Hermione added more and more to the letter to Ron and Harry until it was well over four feet of parchment. Finally, one day almost three weeks after the celebration party in which Hermione had blurted out her secret, she rolled up the long parchment and attached it to the family owl, Lindy. She petted her on the head softly before she headed out into the night. It was out of her hands; now all she could do was wait patiently for a reply.
I don't know why I'm writing this to the both of you but since you're usually together, I figured this might be the best way.
I know it's been a long time since we talked; three years the last time I checked. I'm sorry for not keeping in contact but it's hard enough for me, keeping up with a house, a husband and a job. But I have some news: now I will also have a family to look after.
Yes, I'm pregnant. It wasn't planned or anything but I'm in my mid- twenties now; I think it's about time I get started on a family. I've always wanted a large family and I guess this is as good a place to start as any.
Please be happy for me. I really want to rekindle our friendship. We had such good times during our years together and I really don't want to lose that. Please owl me back as soon as you get this and let me know how you all are. With love, Hermione.
She stopped writing and re-read the letter. Something just didn't sound right. Should she wait to send the letter or mail it now and get it over with? It was a big decision and she was having a difficult time making it.
It was the Sunday after the celebration. Both Mrs. Granger and Narcissa Malfoy had gone home pretty intoxicated. The husbands dutifully followed and Hermione could help but laugh at the dejected look on Lucius' face; finally something he feared had happened right under his suspicious nose and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Hermione and Draco spent much of the night up in the sitting room, going over names they thought were fitting and names they thought were outrageous.
"Who names their kid Gouda?" crowed Draco near the break of morning. "Or veal? If you name our child Bologna, I will leave you, I swear it."
Hermione was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down her cheeks. The prospect of the future Malfoy generation having names like "Veal", and "Gouda" were too funny for her to comprehend. "Wouldn't your father love that?" she giggled.
They had gone to bed near five in the morning and Hermione had awoken around noon to find Draco up and dressed. She had ate a quick lunch ("You're eating for two now," Draco ordered) and started her letter to Ron and Harry. After many drafts, she could only come up with what sounded pathetic to her ears. It wasn't easy, writing to friends you haven't spoken to in so long. Any passerby would have thought they had gotten into a fight the previous time they spoke but this was not the case. In fact it was quite the opposite.
"We'll always be friends," Harry had vowed as he pressed his forehead against Hermione's. Ron joined them, and repeated Harry's promise.
"Always," he echoed.
Hermione had felt the fullest when she was with her friends. Not that her relationship with Draco was unfulfilling but it's a different kind of friendship you share with your husband than your childhood friends. .
Hermione tucked the letter away, deciding to look it over later. Some days the words just flowed out of her and others it seemed that a barrier had been put up in her mind that blocked all logical thought from getting through. It would be better to wait for one of those logical days before accepting the letter as it was.
She leaned back at her desk and stared out the window in front of her. The rain that had been promised for the weekend was now delivered; it came down in heavy buckets, quite the opposite from yesterday's weather. Hermione was glad it had waited. She didn't like being with Lucius Malfoy outside in a wide-open space; being cooped up with him under a roof would be twice the pain.
Squinting her eyes into the distance, she noticed something flying towards the house. "A broom, a carpet, a U.F.O.?" she questioned as it flew towards the house. She saw the owl soar into an upstairs window and she scrambled up to the bedroom to see whom it was from.
Draco was in the basement tinkering with something that he had bought in Diagon Alley a few weeks ago. It was similar to a Muggle air hockey table but kept shooting heavy aims of the little disk at its unsuspecting player. Draco had almost received two black eyes from the machine already, yet he continued to try and figure out what went wrong.
The letter that had arrived bore the Hogwarts crest; Hermione felt a swell of pride and joy burst into her heart as she ripped open the envelope. The writing was tiny and lopsided; she couldn't remember seeing it before.
"Dear Ms. Granger," she read to herself, sitting on the bed with one foot tucked under her. "It is with the lightest of hearts that I congratulate you on your expectant bundle of joy. We are most pleased here at Hogwarts upon hearing the news, especially since one Lucius Malfoy took such pain in telling us. We wish you the best." The letter was signed with signatures from every Hogwarts' professor, starting with Professor Dumbledore's in the same precise, tiny writing. Hagrid's was large and sloppy and contained a loopy happy face; Professor McGonagall's was straight and upright and reminded Hermione heavily of the professor herself.
She smiled, holding the letter close to her heart. Professor Dumbledore knew how much Hogwarts meant to her and if she couldn't share this experience with Ron and Harry, the least she could do was share it with the staff at Hogwarts.
She had just sat down and begun to write back when a yelp of pain could be heard from several floors below. She stood up and rushed for the stairs just in time to see Draco staggering around blindly.
"Damn thing hit me in the eye!" he cried, holding his left eye. "And apparently it talks, too. Told me I was a worthless loser."
"What did you do to it?" Hermione asked, descending the staircase, staring down her husband with a look. He grinned sheepishly and ducked his head.
"Kicked it."
Hermione nodded knowingly. "So it threw a disk at your eye; do you blame it?"
"No."
Hermione tended to Draco's eye and he escaped without any bruising or cuts. After that, she considered going back upstairs to try and finish her letter to Hogwarts but she felt that the creativity had temporarily abandoned her mind. Instead, she curled up on the sofa in front of the fire in the sitting room and watched as the lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder rumbled through the house as Draco's cries of anger and pain floated up from the lower level.
The next few weeks passed in something of a blur to Hermione. She had told select people at work that she was pregnant and they all reacted with big smiles and congratulatory hugs. Narcissa and Mrs. Granger were forever dropping by with little outfits they had seen that they thought were adorable or things that they felt Hermione would need to keep her strength up. Her boss had lightened her schedule considerably, giving Hermione plenty more free time at home to organize and start preparing a baby's room.
She still had written to Harry and Ron. She assumed that if Professor Dumbledore knew about it, Harry and Ron would weasel it out of him somehow; they kept in very close contact with their old professors, or at least they did the last time Hermione had spoken with them.
The baby's room had been chosen and was being prepared in pale green and yellow. "They're neutral colours," Hermione explained to Draco as she pasted up wallpaper with her wand. Little yellow ducks decorated the pale green strips and little green frogs garnished the yellow strips. "That way, it doesn't matter if we have a boy or a girl; the colours are unisex."
That sparked another conversation: did Hermione want a boy or a girl? On the outside, she said it didn't matter, as long as they baby was healthy. But on the inside, she was secretly hoping for a girl. She couldn't wait to dress up her daughter in little dresses.
Draco, however, was adamant that he wanted a boy. "It would be so cool to dress him up in baby Quidditch robes!"
"You can dress a girl in Quidditch robes, too," Hermione replied indignantly. "Both males and females play the sport."
Draco had just looked suddenly sullen, a flash of his days at Hogwarts forming over his head. He had played on the Slytherin Quidditch team and no girls participated in the sport. Hermione couldn't blame him for being narrow-minded in that area.
Every day, Hermione added more and more to the letter to Ron and Harry until it was well over four feet of parchment. Finally, one day almost three weeks after the celebration party in which Hermione had blurted out her secret, she rolled up the long parchment and attached it to the family owl, Lindy. She petted her on the head softly before she headed out into the night. It was out of her hands; now all she could do was wait patiently for a reply.
