If Only…
Disclaimer: I'm not even 15, do you think I own all this? NOPE! Only the plot.
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The headlines all read, "Minister of Magic killed in tragic accident."
If only they knew how little of an accident it was.
If only they knew how many lives were really lost that night.
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Hermione's heart did a back flip as she saw the dark green convertible Mustang pull up in the driveway. She opened the door and ran down the steps of the Malfoy Manor, engulfing her husband in a hug. Oh how long it'd been since she'd been held in those powerful arms.
"Merlin, Mia," he sighed through her curly locks of hair, "I've missed you so much!" He pulled her even closer
"I've missed you too, Draco," she said, leaning on tiptoe to kiss his lips.
A squealing figure parted them.
"Daddy!"
Draco looked down to gaze upon his beautiful daughter.
"Ivy!" he called, picking the girl up and pushing her curly white-blonde hair from her face before planting a large kiss on her forehead. "Oh, I missed you so much!"
"I missed you too, daddy!" Ivy wailed, looking up at him with those big, steel blue eyes.
"It feels like it's been forever! Look how long your hair's gotten!" he exclaimed, curling her now waist length hair around his index finger. Ivy smiled and wiggled her way out of his arms to stand at her mother's side.
"Do you remember what today is?" Hermione asked, turning to Draco.
"Of course I do!" he replied, "Wait here." He walked back to his car and returned with a long, slender box wrapped in shinny blue paper.
"Happy birthday, sweetie," he said, handing the gift to Ivy.
"Thanks, Daddy!" she exclaimed as she took the parcel.
"Geeze, this makes you how old?" Draco inquired.
"7 silly!" she laughed.
"Oh! Right! Seven!" he smiled.
Ivy's eyes grew wide as she pulled away the paper to reveal a toy broom, just her size too!
"Oh, Daddy! It's wonderful!" she exclaimed, her eyes growing even wider.
"Look, Mommy, look!" Ivy cried, pushing the broom in Hermione's face.
"That's wonderful, Ivy," Hermione said with a not-so-happy look on her face.
Draco turned to her as Ivy ran down the green-grassed lawn to test her new toy.
"Don't worry, sweetie," he reassured her, "It only goes high enough for her feet to skim the ground and wont go faster than her bike."
Relief played across Hermione's face.
"Good," she said, "The last thing I need is my daughter killing herself on a toy broom." They laughed.
Draco grabbed her and led her inside their grand house to the parlor, which was decorated in embellishing blacks and whites. When they were both sitting on their favorite black leather couch, Draco rested his hand on Hermione's stomach.
"How's the baby?" he asked, feeling the kicking beneath his fingers.
"He's fine," she responded, putting her hand on top of his.
"He? How do you know it's a boy? I thought we weren't going to ask the doctor," he asked her accusingly.
"I didn't ask the doctor, I just knew. Just like I knew with Ivy," she told him, smiling.
"Oh," he said, "Sorry."
"It's alright," she told him.
"So, how are you," he asked, changing the subject.
"Well, besides the whole being 9 months pregnant, very close to my due date, and about to burst, I'm fine," she laughed, "I was a little scared by the fact of you leaving me for so long, but I'm over it."
"I'm so sorry, Mi, but the Russian Minister of Magic required 'All ze Ministers to be zere,'" he mimicked.
"I know, but 2 months is an awful long time. I don't care if you are Minister of Magic, your family should come first!" she exclaimed sadly.
"I'm so sorry, love," he apologized, putting his arm around her and pulling her close.
"It's ok. All that matters is that you'll be here for the birth of our son," she told him.
"That I will," he replied, pulling her lips to his.
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If only they knew the story through my cold eyes.If only they knew how much more than his life the Minister lost.
If only…
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Hermione was woken a week later in her sleep by an extremely bad pang of agony overcoming her sides.
"Draco!" she exclaimed breathlessly to the sleeping figure on her right.
"What's wrong Mia," he asked, shooting up in bed.
She gasped for breath as she underwent another contraction.
"I-I think I'm having contractions!" she stuttered, grabbing his hand and squeezing it tightly.
"Ok, Mione, you need to wait here while I go find a suitcase and get raise Ivy from her sleep," he told her, getting up off the bed.
She could only nod.
Draco crossed the room and entered the closet, returning with a baggy tee shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
"Put these on," he said, placing them next to her and leaving the room.
Hermione slowly sat up in her bed. She realized that she fallen asleep in only her bra and panties as she donned the sweatpants, her enormous pregnant stomach spilling over them. She then slipped on the shirt and pulled on a pair of flip-flops.
She fell back on the bed as she underwent another contraction, slightly weaker than the last.
As the pain subsided, she sat up and reached for her wand, which lie on the mahogany table beside her. Hermione stood up again, crossed the room to her mirror and charmed her hair into a braid at the nape of her neck.
Draco re-entered the room just in time to catch Hermione as she went into a muscle spasm and started to fall to the floor.
"Mommy," Ivy whimpered, following fast to Draco's heels, "Are you ok?" Her eyes were wide with fear.
"Yeah, I'm ok, sweetheart," Hermione said sweetly, "Mommy's gonna go have her baby, now."
"Really?" she asked enthusiastically.
"Yeah, really," Draco answered her as Hermione underwent yet another contraction.
"Locomoter," he said, pointing his wand at the suitcase and picking up his daughter.
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The cold, quiet air of the Maternity Ward was so forbidding.
Draco sat impatiently in the waiting room, Hermione had insisted that he leave, obviously not wanting him to see her so weak. She'd done the same thing with Ivy; Draco's have to wait until she was fully dilated.
He turned to look at the others who were present in the room: Blaise and Ginny Zabini and their daughter Ember, Harry and Pansy Potter and their son Varzil (AN: the name sounds weird on Pansy, doesn't it?), Hermione's parents, and Narcissa, sitting off in her own corner. One person was still missing: Ronald Weasly. Fred and George had pushed him off the Astronomy Tower at the end of seventh year, like they said they would in the 3rd book. No one gave a shit really.
"Mr. Malfoy," the doctor started, sticking his head out from around the corner and breaking the silence, "We are in need of your assistance."
Draco looked over to the sleeping figure of his daughter on Harry's lap.
"Keep an eye on her," he told him.
"I will," Harry reassured Draco," In fact, I'll keep two." He laughed.
Draco shook his head at the stupid comment, but couldn't help laughing.
"Slip that on," the doctor told him as he entered the room, gesturing to the white jacket.
Once Draco was clad in the white jacket, he joined the other doctors next to Hermione's pale figure.
"She's fully dilated!" a nurse yelled, beckoning to the doctor.
Hermione's eyes flickered open and she grabbed Draco's hand.
"I'm scared," she whispered with wide eyes, "Some things wrong."
"Nothing's wrong, Mi," he reassured her, hiding his fear, "Everything's going to be just fine."
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She'd been in labor all night, not allowing herself to have the baby. She kept telling the doctors that the baby was destined for death that bringing his into this world was a mistake.
Even though holding the baby in was more painful than birthing it, Hermione was set on keeping inside her.
Finally, the doctors, fearing for Hermione's life, pumped sedates through her veins. But not even that could put the determined mother to rest.
She did allow herself to bare the baby, but she kept babbling warnings to them all throughout the night. She insisted that it was a waste of life. Is there even such a thing? Is life just a waste?
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If only we were safe from the cold reality of change.
If only things went the way we'd all planned.
If only…
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"How's the baby?" Hermione asked, waking for the first time since given in to the sedates.
Draco, who was draped in a chair next to his pale wife's bed, was startled awake by her voice.
"He's great. Strong and healthy," he told her, getting up from the chair.
She laughed, "So it was a boy then?"
"Yeah, it was." He laughed with her, "How did you know?"
"It's a motherly instinct… you wouldn't understand," she mocked sternly, trying to sound sarcastic.
Draco smiled weakly, now taking in her profile: The color of her face, which had turned yellow, was of no concern to the doctor, but it sure as hell scared him, the color looked as though it had been sucked away from her eyes and mouth, and she looked ever so pale, almost resembling a zombie.
One thing that he couldn't understand was why Hermione's been so frightened by the birth of their son. I mean; she'd looked genuinely scared senseless.
As he searched her drained eyes for an answer, a nurse entered, pushing their baby in a cart in front of her.
"You still have to name him," she reminded them sweetly as she set the baby in Hermione's arms
Suddenly, her eyes filled with light.
"He's beautiful," she said, clearly astonished that she'd created him.
"He is," the nurse agreed, moving to stand by the door.
"I'm going to go and get you something to eat," she continued.
Hermione nodded her head in agreement as the nurse quietly shut the door behind her.
Draco looked into her pensive eyes. He could tell that she was searching the darkest depths of her mind for the perfect name.
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If only all was good, and none evil.
If only everyone could die a peaceful, painless death.
If only…
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Those eyes; they're definitely his father's, cept for the speckles of dark blue in them. But that hair, she twirled her own around her index finger, that's definitely mine.
Hermione returned to combing her mind for the perfect name. She'd already thrown out Jacob, Cameron, Edwin, Bradley, James, Sean, Kyle, and Pyre. She was seriously considering Varzil, but that was Pansy's son's name. She'd already pushed the thought of naming him after his father from her mind.
The name that she'd really wanted to give the baby had now slipped her mind. As franticly as she tried she just couldn't remember it.
She was trying so hard that she didn't realize that the nurse had set a tray of food in front of her.
"You need to eat, Mi," Draco insisted, taking the baby from her unknowing arms.
Hermione stared down at her food and muttered a single word.
"What?" Draco asked, not hearing her.
"Eadoin," she repeated (AN: Pronounced Ay-dow-in. Emphasis on the "Ay").
"Oh, that's a lovely name!" the nurse smiled, walking up to Draco.
"I have to take him back to the nursery," she told him, maintaining her happy smile.
As he reluctantly handed her the baby, she added, "Make sure she eats." He nodded.
When the nurse had closed the door, Draco walked over to Hermione, who was still transfixed on her food.
"Eadoin?" he asked, drawing her pale chocolate orbs.
"Yeah. What, don't you like it?" she asked, making puppy eyes at him.
Draco knelt down next to her.
"No," he paused. Her face grew sad, "I love it." Her face beamed.
"You do?"
"Of course! But what about a middle name?" he inquired.
"Ivy doesn't have one, so neither should Eadoin," she countered.
Eadoin Malfoy. He liked it; it flowed.
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If only they'd left one day earlier.
If only I wasn't such a sound sleeper,
If only…
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"Happy birthday!" everyone yelled as the two boys entered the door.
"Varzil!" one boy shouted, shoving the other, "Why didn't you tell me?" He had an extremely surprised look on his face.
"Because, Eadoin," Varzil explained, "It would take away from the fun!"
Eadoin was still laughing as he looked around to see who'd attended: Ember Zabini, Ivy, of course, Kaiden, Neville and Luna's son, Ashlyn, Seamus and Parvatti's daughter, his parents, grandparents, and all his friend's parents. The nice-sized group almost filled the entrance hall, and that was saying something.
"Wow," Ember started, now standing next to him, "You're 5 now! Geeze, you're getting big!"
Eadoin laughed and thanked her. Ivy, Varzil, and Ember were all 5 years older than he, whereas Ashlyn and Kaiden were a year younger than he was.
There was a soft clinking of a cup.
"We would like to announce," his father started, "That for our children's birthdays, we will be taking them to the Florida Keys." There was much applause as everyone fantasized what his or her own trip would be like.
"That's so cool!" Eadoin exclaimed.
"Yeah," Ivy agreed, "Thanks." They both engulfed their parents in a hug.
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If only we weren't one if the most despised families in England.
If only I had went with them.
If only…
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"I'm so sorry I cant go," Hermione apologized as she buckled her kids into the car and bid them farewell, "Too much to do at work."
She withdrew her head from the backseat of the Mustang.
"Make sure you have fun," she told her husband, throwing in a passionate kiss.
"I will," he reassured her.
"Make sure you guys write to me, ok?" she asked her kids.
"Sure thing, Mom," Ivy called as Draco started to get in the car.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure they write," he said, pulling her over to the window.
"I love you," he told her.
"I love you more," she said, catching his lips in hers.
She wanted never to pull away, to always hold his lips with hers. Never to forget this moment, to always remember his mind-boggling kiss. How soft, perfect his lips were.
Lacing her tongue with his, she entwined her hands in his hair.
"Eww…" Eadoin whispered to Ivy in the backseat.
"Tell me about it," Ivy said, a little louder.
"Sorry," Hermione said, looking up from Draco, "But I'm not gonna see your father for a very long time."
"I thought you had your fill of his last night," Ivy mocked rudely.
It was true. She and Draco had repeatedly made love to each other all night. But she'd thought her children were asleep… obviously not.
Seeing Hermione's confused face, Draco added, "Watch your tone, young lady."
"She's just upset cause Mommy's no going with us," Eadoin told him.
"Oh, I see," Hermione started, "Well, I'm very sorry, sweetie." She waved apologetically, seeing Ivy's sour face.
"It's alright," Ivy responded.
"Good."
"Well, have a good time!" she said, lightly pecking a kiss on her husband's cheek.
"We will, Mom," her kids yelled from the backseat.
"I love you, Mia," Draco said as he turned on the Mustang.
"I love you more!" she said as Draco shifted the car into drive.
"No, you don't," he called as the car drove away.
A small smile played across Hermione's face as she returned to her house.
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If only they hadn't taken that private jet.
If only I could see their faces just one last time.
If only…
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"Mia! Mi! Pick up the phone!" Draco's panic-stricken voice rang over the answering machine, "The plane's been hijacked! N-no!" His voice was full of struggle.
"Hello, Hermione," an all-to-familiar voice broke out over the speaker. "I hope you've got what you wanted! The perfect husband, your perfect kids; they were all a waste!" the voice sneered, "You should've had me!"
There was a THUD! as the phone was carelessly thrown on the floor and a rustling as it was picked up again.
"Mia, I just want you to know how much I love you," Draco's voice rang out again, "I'll never stop loving you. This isn't the end. I'll find a way to see you again. I promise."
There was a muffling sound came as the phone was passed.
"Mummy?" a scared Eadoin asked.
"Hurry up!" Ivy's voice came from far away.
"Sorry," it was Eadoin's voice again.
"Mommy. I just want you to know how much I love and how much I'll miss you." He was close to tears now, Goodbye, Mom."
A sniffle and the phone was again passed.
"Mom," It was now Ivy who spoke, "I Just want you that this was the most incredible 12 years of my life and that I will always love you-" but there was a click and a steady dial tone.
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If only…888
Silent tears streamed down Hermione's pale cheeks as she listened to the message the next morning.
They can't die yet, she thought, they haven't even lived their whole lives yet!
Desperately, she threw herself into the nearest chair, whishing only to hold her family in her arms again.
Her children… they'd had such a short life. There was just no way they'd lived their lives to the fullest.
She wished that their assassin was still alive; Hermione would've ripped him apart, limb-by-limb, and she would've enjoyed it.
Blaise! She had a metal breakthrough, That's who did it! That's why the voice sounded so familiar!
Although her heart was dripping with sorrow, she could feel it ice over with hate.
Did he really care for her that much? Enough to kill off her family? Hermione'd thought that he only had a schoolboy crush on her… now she thought different.
There was no telling how much damage he'd done. Was she to spend her days wallowing in self-pity? To cry everyday cause she didn't get to see Draco's steel eyes every morning? Or Ivy and Eadoin's smiles?
She couldn't take it anymore. Drying her tear-stained face on a nearby quilt, she made her way to the bathroom that she'd shared with her beloved husband.
She looked at her face in the mirror: pale with mascara streaming from her eyes. Her hair was a wreck and she was still in her PJ's.
Striping of all her clothing, she turned on the nearby shower. Now, she searched through her drawer until her hand hit metal: a razor.
She entered the foggy confinements of the warm water and sunk to the floor, allowing the shower to cascade down on her.
Hermione sat there thinking of her husband and children for what seemed a very long time. She allowed fresh tears to stream down her once dry face.
This razor.
The things that she now missed.
The warm, blood filled water.
Eadoin's eyes.
The same incision on both wrists.
Ivy's smile.
One last thought.
Draco's love.
The cool floor covered by her paper-pale nakedness.
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If only life wasn't so cruel.
If only there was an easier way.
If only.
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FIN!
AN: Yeah… my first kinda sad fanfic… let me know what you think! READ AND REVIEW!
Much love,
Ashley
PS: Thanks much to my previous reviewers!