"Either this wallpaper goes, or I do." --Oscar Wilde
Chapter Four: Lions and Snakes
"Are you knocked up yet?"
Hermione did not dignify Blaise's question by answering. She just dropped her satchel by the door and fell onto the couch. After a bit of maneuvering, she managed to kick off her shoes in the general direction of the sarcastic Slytherin. He dodged the flying object with an ease born of experience. Leaving the law book he was reading open on his lap, he rested his chin on his hand as he watched her pinch the bridge of her nose. Blaise had often seen the same habit in his former Head of House. There were times that he wondered if his roommate knew where she had picked up the gesture.
"Is that a 'no'? I bet it's because you couldn't study it to death before you went."
"Not helping, Blaise."
For several moments, neither of the roommates said anything. Blaise Zabini continued reading the thick tome resting on his lap. Scrimgeour was attempting to pass a tax against the estates of suspected Death Eaters. Disappointedly, the half-brain Minister of Magic had listed the Malfoy, Greengrass, and Zabini estates on that list. Lanai Zabini, Blaise's mother, had opened her ancestral keep to the Order during both wars. Draco Malfoy, the new head of the Malfoy family, had turned spy and had ended up risking his life to save Severus Snape when the old potion-maker had been caught after his deflection.
It was the inclusion of the Greengrasses that had been the final straw for even those who believed in Scrimgeour. The Greengrass family was notoriously neutral. They were the only pureblood family that has ever managed to neither help nor hinder either side of a war. This war was no different. Their place on the register of suspected Death Eaters was laughable at best.
The principals of those three families as well as half a dozen more of the listed had come to the young lawyer for his legal advice. That's what he was doing when Hermione had found her way home, looking up information for his newest clients. He was running out of options as well as reading material. A sigh from the couch drew his attention away from the increasingly hopeless situation to one quite the opposite.
"Is that the sound of a Gryffindor giving up?" He stuck his head back in his book. Noting that he had reached the bottom of the page, he flicked to a new one. "And just when I was beginning to think that determination was a House trait."
"Still not helping, Blaise."
"This must be bad," he quipped, turning his attention back to Hermione. "What was the problem?"
"He could be anyone--anyone at all--and then I have to find him and tell him that I'm pregnant."
"And the problem is..."
"Can you imagine me going up to some complete stranger in Brazil and announcing that I'm carrying his child?"
"Can I sale tickets?"
Blaise prepared to duck. He was expecting one of the periwinkle-colored pillows to come flying in his direction. When Hermione did not try to retaliate, the former snake tried to form some semblance of seriousness. He closed his legal book and placed it to the side.
"Hand me the contract," he instructed. Hermione's response was a glare. Blaise let out a dramatic sigh. Apparently, his bushy-haired roommate was not in the mood to take orders. He gave another sigh and held out his hand. "Maybe I can find a loophole."
"The Slytherin lawyer strikes again," Hermione drawled as she swung her legs off the couch. After handing him the stack of papers and pamphlets, she fell back onto the divan and allowed the soft blues and whites of the flat to relax her.
-/--/--/--/--/---
Hermione had fallen in love with the flat the moment she had seen it. Light and air had filled it. The high arched ceilings soared above her head without dwarfing her as the spaces of Hogwarts had. The flat was huge, more than big enough for two people. It was everything she had wanted in an apartment. There was even a room for a potions lab. And if it hadn't been for Blaise, she would never have gotten it.
The ignorant landlord had not wanted to rent to a single woman. She had been in the midst of trying to control her anger when Blaise walked in as if he owned the place. He had kissed her on the cheek, called her 'darling', and asked her how things were going. When she had made to protest, he had interrupted with an apology for being late. Having learned from the War that plans were not always the best thing in the world, she had adapted quickly to the masquerade.
The biggest fight the pair had initially was about colors, particularly which to use to decorate the flat. It stretched on for a week. Hermione had almost gotten used to waking up in the morning to find the dark roses and golds she had spelled the night before changed to silvers and emeralds. Eventually, though, they had compromised by not choosing either of Slytherin or Gryffindor colors. Blaise never mentioned it, but Hermione was still aware that he was relieved not to be surrounded by his House colors, just as she was. Sometimes the memories were just too much to deal with on top of everything else.
That first week contained more than a battle about colors. It was when they divided the flat. Blaise couldn't mess with Hermione's potion lab. Likewise, Hermione wasn't allowed to change anything about the generous patio just outside the kitchen. By the end of their first night together, Blaise had also forbidden her from making anything but tea in the kitchen. The next morning, even the right to make tea was taken from her.
"How is it," Blaise had asked after she had made the morning brew, "that you can brew the most difficult potions possible yet be unable to make a drinkable cup of Earl Grey?" As he poured out the smoking pot into the sink, he furthered his comment with, "I think the Wizarding world would be safer if you weren't allowed anywhere near a place where there is a need for culinary skills." After the muck coating the teapot refused to be moved by a Scourgify, Blaise cast the equally simple Reducto charm. "Maybe the muggle one as well."
Hermione picked up the nearest thing, a pillow, and chucked it at him. He deftly caught it out of midair. A few flick of his wand later, there was new teapot simmering on the stove. The Wizarding law student then winked at her. But the habit of throwing things at him had been born.
Blaise's mother, the Lady Pendragon, was initially thrilled when he told her that that he was moving in with a woman. She wasn't upset that Blaise was gay. In pureblood society, men outnumbered women three to one. Homosexuality, while not encouraged, was accepted, at least among men. However, men did not have wombs, a necessity for an heir. The Pendragon line used to rule the Wizarding world and thus 'could not be allowed to wither away like the broken branch of a fig tree.' Since there were only three surviving members of the family total, Blaise was forever hearing about the need to settle down to start having children. Lanai Zabini, who was unable to bear any more children, and Severus Snape, who hated...well, people, were the other two descendants. There was a lot of pressure on Blaise to make an honest man of his long-term boyfriend, Seamus Finnegan. The news that her son was taking up residence with a powerful and renowned witch had understandable made Lanai very happy. Not even Hermione and Blaise's steadfast denials could change that.
The real milestone, of course, was when Harry and Blaise met for the first time. The two had stared at each other for the briefest of moments before they had both seemed to become very interested in everything else in the flat. Seamus had drifted over from where he had been talking with the Weasley twins to stand by Hermione. Silence was strung between the group, taut with the tension of turmoil.
"I heard you killed a Dark Lord, Potter."
Hermione had bitten her lip in dismay. Beside her, Seamus let out a frustrated groan. The two Gryffindors were by that time familiar with Blaise's unique form of humor. This was not the time for joking. Moreover, that was not a laughing matter. It didn't matter to Harry, though. Apparently, his hermitage had mellowed him. A smile appeared on Harry's face that had not been seen in a while.
"Yeah," Harry had replied in the same slightly mocking tone, "I think I may have done something like that."
From that point on, their lives became habitual. Once a week, she spent the night at the Nest, Harry's hideaway, catching up or devouring his library. Hermione suspected that Seamus and Blaise put her absence to good use, but as long as they stayed out her rooms, she didn't care. The two unlikely roommates had formed a fragile friendship the morning she had blown up the tea. From that tiny seed, a mighty oak had grown. After six years of living together, Hermione felt as close to Blaise as she was to Harry. Like phoenix rising from the ashes, she had found happiness after sorrow.
Then she had heard the ticking.
She wanted a family of her own. Oh, she still had Rity, Naman, and all the many members of the troop. There was also Harry, the Weasleys, and the ever-increasing number of Weasley-Longbottoms, all of whom were as close as blood. But none were hers. She wanted a child of her own.
The only problem was a father.
But that was such a small thing.