Author's notes: I'm really proud of myself for getting this up so fast, but the fact is that I'm trying to finish it before I leave for France on Wednesday. I'm going to be gone for a whole year, and I don't know if I'll have access to computers, so I thought I'd better finish this before I leave, so I won't have to put it on hold. I don't really know how much that's left, but I reckon it's about five, maybe six chapters.

Now, on to the thank you:s:

SugarQuill Cutie: Yepp, I got the mail, and I want you back now, 'cause I need help! I'm running out of time here! Anyways, thanks so much for the review (in love with the fic, can I get a better compliment?).

Colleen: I'd like to think that this fic's something special, but I don't have any illusions. I've actually read one that's made har pregnant, but I didn't really like that one, and I promise, this is all my own ideas. Thanks so much for the review!

bookxluver: Yes, I know, sorry about that whole bastard-thing, but it was required. I hope it will all be axplained in due time, but right now, he has be a bastard. Thanks for the review!

you muggle:Well, I can't really answer that question, because that would give away the story, don't you think? Hope you don't mind :-D Thanks of the review, I really appreciate it!

mysteriousharm: See the previous thank you. No, seriously, I can't tell you, because whether she'll keep it or not is part of the story, and, I hope, part of why you're reading, because you want to know. So you'll just have to wait and see (I love it when I'm evil :-) Thanks for the review!

angel-1844: Totally in character both of them? Thank you so much for saying that, that's, I think, the best compliment I've ever got! It is my goal to sort of keep them in character, but I tend to slip, mainly because they've fallen in love, and that's way out of character for both of them, but when someone says that they're in character it...it just warms my heart "tear" Thank you!

666Morgan La Fey777: Nope, as you said, can't tell you what kind of ending it will be, because if I say happy, that means they'll stay together, and if I say angsty, that means they won't, so...OK, it doesn't necessarily have to mean that, but still can't tell you. I don't want to tell you either, I want to keep my readers lol Thanks for the review!

Broken Monroe: I totally agree with you, they make damn good stories, that's why I'm writing one lol Thanks for the review!

mish-serenity: Starting to like this story? I'm thinking about whether I should be offended or not...nay, it's too early in the morning for that. I'll just erase to first two words and stick to "like the story". Thanks for the review!

S.c.ou.s.er.4.li.f.e - Kate - Outsider16 - mchs-angel08 - CanadianWerewolfe - Captain-Ammie - for sure - kasey - bbysail28 - wicca-girl14 - thewomanofthehour


Part IV

Hermione had no idea how she got through the following day. What had before been absentmindedness was now pure unintress. Through ever singel class she sat with her head on her arms on the bench, not listening to anything anoyone said, which made her wonder why she'd gotten out of bed at all.

She avoided Harry and Ron, even though she knew they were trying to talk to her, and every body else too. She came to the classes just before they were going to start and sat down in the back of the classroom, and disappeared fast as lightening when they ended. During the breakes she sat in the darkest corner of the library, staring out the window. She even skipped lunch, which wasn't really a sacrifice, she thought, since she wasn't hungry. Instead she wondered the corridors, avoiding crowds, refusing to even let her thoughts near the subject of her life.

She was left alone for the whole day, untill that evening, when she was walking around in the east part of the castle, trying to decide whether her need for sleep was greater than her desire to avoid Draco. Suddenly someone seized her shoulders from behind and spun her around, and Hermione was staring into Harry's green eyes.

"Oh, Harry, you, you scared me." Hermione's voice was hoarse from 24 hours of silence.

"Sorry, didn't mean to," Harry said, but he didn't sound the least bit sorry. "What are you doing, 'Mione?"

"Oh, you know, just walking to clear my head." She shrugged her shoulders.

"No." Harry shook his head. "I mean, why are you avoiding us?"

Hermione blushed and lowered her gaze to her shoes. "I'm not exactly avoiding you," she mumbled.

"Yes, you are!" Harry gripped her shoulders and Hermione looked at him. "'Mione, we're your friends, you have to tell us what's wrong!"

"Nothing's wrong, Harry. Really, I'm fine." Hermione tried every feeble excuse she could come up with, but Harry wasn't convinced. He grabbed her hand and began pulling her down the corridor. "Harry, wait, where are we going?"

"To the Gryffindor common room," he answered grimly. "And I won't let you out of there untill you have told me what's wrong."

Hermione was too tired to struggle, or to even protest. She let him drag her through the castle and into the common room, and to place her in a chair. But when he, Ron and Ginny sat down around her, her strength returned.

"Do you know that I could accuse you of kidnapping?" she said with a voice that wasn't quite as firm as she'd wished.

Both Ginny and Ron smiled, but Harry just glared at her. "You weren't very resistent, Hermione. But if you want to tell everybody that your best friends kidnapped you, fine. But wouldn't that prove that I'm right, that you really are avoiding us?"

Hermione opened her mouth to argue, but she didn't have anything to say. Harry was right. She closed her mouth again and lent back in the chair.

"Fine," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "But I still claim there's nothing wrong with me."

Ginny looked sceptically at her, and Harry just shook his head.

"Well, we think so," Ron said. "We think something really bad has happened." He gave her a concerned look. "Has Malfoy done anything to you?"

Hermione laughed bitterly. "I suppose you could say that, but I wouldn't call it bad. It's just the aftermath I don't like." She'd thrown all caution out the window. She didn't want to pretend anymore, and she didn't care what they'd say.

The boys were wearing identical puzzled looks, but Ginny had slammed her hand over her mouth and was staring wide-eyed at Hermione.

"Oh, Hermione, no!" she said in a muffled whisper.

Hermione nodded, and Ginny flew up from her chair and threw her arms around Hermione's neck.

Both Harry and Ron stared at them.

"Can anyone explain to us what this is all about?" Ron asked in a loud voice, pointing from himself to Harry.

"I'm pregnant," Hermione said. Nothing more, nothing less, just the truth.

Harry just stared at her without speaking, and Hermione thought his silence was worse than anything. Ron, on the other hand, fell forward and hit his head against the table.

"No way!" she heared him say, and it was hardly more than a hoarse whisper. He lifted his head from the table. "And with Malfoy?"

Hermione nodded heavily. She didn't know what she'd expected, but this was worse.

Ron was about to throw his head back on the table, but Hermione quickly put her hand in between, and Ron's forehead almost broke her knuckles. She lent back in the chair, massaging the back of her hand, waiting for one of her friends to say something.

"Did he rape you?" Harry spoke for the first time since she'd dropped the bomb.

Hermione shook her head. "No, he didn't. We..." She took a deep breath, about to drop the second bomb. "We've sort of been seeing each other for the past...months."

Ron lifted his head from the table once more, and both he and Harry stared at her in disbelief. Hermions turned, with a helpless gesture, to Ginny, who, to Hermione's surprise, didn't look at all thrown back. Hermione raised her eyebrows in a questioning gesture, and Ginny shrugged her shoulders.

"I knew." Hermione's eyes widened, and so did the boys'. "Well, allright, I had my suspicions," Ginny continued. "I saw you two snogging beneath the Astronomy Tower once, but I thought that if you were going out you'd want to keep it a secret, or tell us yourself."

Hermione smiled, very relieved that at least one of her friends trusted her to make her own decisions, and she gave Ginny a hug.

"So, pregnant?" Ginny said when they'd let go off each other. "Have you told him?" Hermione nodded. "Well, what did he say?"

The memory brought tears to Hermione's eyes, but she firmly swallowed back the lump in her throat.

"He...basically told me to...sod off," she said in what she hoped was a carefree voice, but she didn't dare look at the people around the table.

"He was probably just shocked," Ron said in a gentle voice. Hermione looked up and stared at him in disbelief. Ron gave her a weak smile and she shook her head.

"No, I don't think so," she said. "This wasn't exaktly the first time we've had a row, and we have after all broken up."

She knew the others were staring at her, but she found it much easier to tell her tale without looking at them.

"You see, me and Draco don't agree. On anything. We always fight, whenever we're in the same room." She smiled thinly. "Well, for obvious resons, almost whenever. And on top of that," she continued, "I found it very hard to keep lying to you guys, so I...broke up with him." The memory made Hermione shiver from both delight and sadness.

"How did he take it?" Ginny asked when Hermione had been quiet for some time.

"Quite well," Hermione said, forcing herself back to reality, for she had been lost in dreams, both real and fictive, about Draco. "We actually haven't talked since then. Untill last night, when I told him about...well, you know."

Hermione felt that she was losing grip of reality once more. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep for a hundred years, just like Sleeping Beauty. Light was never as gentle as darkness, nor as forgiving. The one who said that was right.

"Do you love him, Hermione?" Harry's gentle voice pulled her back to the harsh reality with, what she thought, a loud thump.

Hermione thought about his question for a moment before she answered.

"Yes, I do," she said, and as soon as the words were out, she knew they were true. A soft smile spread across her lips, but then she remembered all the evil things he'd said last night, and the smile disappeared. He didn't love her, she couldn't tell herself that he did, how much she might ever try.

She felt she owed her friends, at least Harry and Ron, an explanation to her previous statement, so she forced herself to talk to them, to tell them.

"Yes, me and Draco fought. A lot. About everything and nothing. We called each other terrible things, and occasionally we'd break up. When we were bad, we were terrbile." She smiled once again, remembering all the nights she'd spent in his arms. "But when we were good, we were great, the best. He made me feel safe, beautiful...and loved. Yes, I'm alomst sure that once he did love me, for a little while."

Hermione's mind wasn't really in the game. Her heart seemed to form words her mouth spoke before her brain had corrected them. She flushed, realizing what she'd just said.

Ginny patted her arm comfortingly. "I wonder what went wrong."

Hermione threw her arms out in a helpless gesture, alomst knocking both Harry and Ginny off their chairs.

"Everything!" she answered in a loud voice. Luckily for her, the common room was empty except for them, everybody else had gone to bed. "I just have to realize," she continued in a lower voice, "That me and Draco weren't-"

She was interrupted by a loud banging. It sounded as if someone was knocking very hard on the portrait of the Fat Lady.

Hermione looked confused at the others, then rose from her chair and walked over to the portrait.

"Hermione, wait, you don't know who's out there!" Ginny protested, but Hermione had already pushed open the portrait.

Someone was standing, no, leaning against the wall outside, someone who looked very familliar, even in the darkness.

"Draco?"


Author's notes: Well, I suppose you won't have to wait very long for the next chapter, because five chapters in five days...well, you do the maths. But don't let that stop you from leaving me a

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