Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns everything but the plot. Oh, and Cassie, too.
Chapter 3 – Delivering the Baby
Two days had passed since Hermione had first visited Malfoy Manor to deliver its owner news of his new responsibilites about a certain baby. Now it was time to deliver the actual baby.
Hermione wasn't looking forward to this.
"Are you certain you've got everything?" Mrs Weasley asked worriedly while hovering around Hermione as she laced on her boots. It was late autumn and getting colder by the day, and Hermione hated getting her feet cold.
"Mum, she's fine," Ginny said from her position leaning against the wall near the front door. "And Cassie will be fine – she's not going to live her entire life at Malfoy Manor, mum! Lupin and Tonks can't be... can't be dead. We'll find them and give Cassie back to them."
"Yes, but until then, she'll be in the hands of Draco Malfoy," Mrs Weasley said.
Hermione smiled comfortingly.
"Don't worry about it," she said, although she herself was worrying about it. "I'm... I will be checking up on her regularly. I've told you all this before. It'll be okay."
"You better get going," said Ginny. She reached down to stroke the vivid blue hair of Cassie, now asleep in a little carrying basket, before Mrs Weasley planted a motherly kiss on the little one's forehead.
"Good luck," Ginny smiled.
"Be careful," Mrs Weasley warned.
Hermione nodded and, with a wave, picked up the carrying basket and stepped outside the front door. Two seconds later she had disapparated to land in front of Malfoy Manor's gates. With a sigh, she took out her auror identification card so that the security gate let her pass through – they had to threaten to throw Malfoy in jail in order to get him to change the Manor's defenses in order to let aurors pass through – but then again, you had to threaten Malfoy with Azkaban to get him to do anything nowadays. Stupid pain in the derrière, Hermione thought.
She strode to the front door and was let in by a house elf at whom she smiled kindly; the house elf, in turn, stared at her as though she were crazy and ran off to summon Malfoy.
The bloody jerk took fifteen minutes to come down to the parlour in which Hermione was seated, and on top of that, his hair was a mess and his shirt wasn't buttoned properly. He glowered at her as he strode into the beautiful room, as though her presence tarnished the expensive furniture. Then his eyes moved to the baby now held in Hermione's arms.
His lip curled as he took in Cassie's blue hair.
"So you brought the hybrid, did you?" he said, eyeing Cassie with contempt.
Hermione was incredibly tempted to tell him off – how dare he judge an innocent baby! - but she held her tongue. If she made him angry, he might refuse to take Cassie in, and then Hermione would have to call aurors to threaten him with Azkaban, and that would just be yet another pain in the derrière.
But she had to defend Cassie.
"Do not speak of a fellow human being as a hybrid, Malfoy," she snapped.
"Why shouldn't I?" he sneered. "That's what she is, Mudblood."
Hermione's head snapped up to look him in the eye, and suddenly rage filled her. The disgusting little jerk was still calling her that five years after Hogwarts?
"You're pathetic," she spat. "You still can't get over the fact that pure blood doesn't make you perfect, you still insult people like me so that your pathetic existence is somewhat justified. I cannot-"
"Shut up," Draco interrupted. His eyes glinted coldly. "You will not speak to me in that way in my house."
Hermione stood up, ignoring Cassie's soft whimper of protest. "I will speak to you in whatever way I wish," she said through gritted teeth. "Especially when you dare to insult me so."
"Get out."
"No."
"Get out!"
"I will not-"
"What seems to be the problem?"
Both Hermione and Draco turned towards the owner of the new voice.
It was none other than Pansy Parkinson, dressed in pink robes, her short dark hair framing her face. Her hair, like Malfoy's, was messy.
Hermione's eyes moved to Malfoy's own messy hair, and put two and two together. She suddenly felt sick as she realized what they must have been doing before she came, and why Malfoy took fifteen minutes to come down to meet her.
"What the heck?" Pansy said, as she recognized Hermione. Then-
"What the hell!" as her eyes found the baby with blue hair. "What freakish mom decided to dye-"
"It's Lupin and Tonks's child," Draco said. "Hence the freakish appearance of the child."
Malfoy, Hermione concluded, was an utter monster. No human could call an infant freakish. Yes, Malfoy was a monster.
"How about you two immature jerks shut up about the appearance of Cassie and show me whose care she'll be left under while she stays here?" Hermione snapped.
"Is the Mudblood insulting us?" Pansy sneered. "Should we show her her rightful place in the world, Draco?"
"Perhaps another time," Draco said, smiling unpleasantly as he moved to stand beside Pansy. "I'll have more fun planning out detailed ways of torturing the know-it-all."
"Oh, you're too much," Parkinson chuckled as Hermione seethed. Cassie whimpered a bit, and then started to cry. Hermione immediately turned her attentions to the baby, speaking in soft, soothing tones while rubbing her back.
"Look, Granger,you made her cry," Draco drawled. "At least I haven't done that yet. I guess she'll be in better hands now."
Hermione ignored him and her ever-mounting anger as she tried to make Cassie stop crying, but Cassie began to wail louder. Hermione rubbed her back, then reached into her bag for a bottle of milk. But Cassie didn't want milk. Hermione looked at Draco, then.
"I need a place where I can check her diaper."
His nose wrinkled in disgust before he said, "bathroom. Upstairs. Squeaky! Show Granger the way. Don't want her getting lost and poking around my stuff."
"Or mine," Pansy added suggestively.
Hermione left the parlour in relief, following Squeaky up the stairs to the second floor, turning right down a long hallway that took her to a majestic, very impressive bathroom.
"Miss Granger may use the counter to check baby's diapers," Squeaky squeaked as he led her towards the marble counters.
"Thanks," Hermione said, as Cassie continued to cry. Quickly placing her on the counter, she pulled off Cassie's little pants to check her diaper -
"Aw man," Hermione gagged. "She really needed a new one."
"Right," Pansy said as soon as Hermione had left the room. "What was she doing here? Trying to search the house again?"
"Probably," Draco snorted. "Apparently I'm to look after my dear cousin's child, because that cousin and her animal husband got it in their heads to get lost." His eyes glinted maliciously.
"So you'll be taking care of a baby?" Pansy purred, turning to Draco and stroking his cheek teasingly.
Draco smirked. "Why do you ask?" He slipped his arm around her waist.
"I do find it attractive when a man can handle children," she said, her voice low.
"And how about when a man can handle his women?" His voice was low now, too, and he was pulling her closer.
The next few minutes were silent as they engaged in various... activities... but when Draco's hands began to work their way up from her waist, Pansy broke away, tutting.
"Nuh uh uh," she smirked. "First of all, do you want Granger to walk in on us doing this?"
Draco's eyes narrowed in irritation. "Who cares?" he said. "She'd probably lunge at the chance to watch some action, seeing as she never gets any-"
"Actually, Malfoy, I know enough about your so called "action" to judge, from what I saw, that you obviously have little experience..."
Draco let go of Pansy's waist and turned with a growl to see Hermione.
"Shut the hell up, Granger," he hissed, feeling anger rise up in his chest. There was something about the stupid know it all that made him irrationally angry, that pulled all the wrong strings, that made him want to make her suffer. There she stood in the doorway of the parlour, his blue-haired relative in her arms, insulting his skills with women when he had had far more experience than anything she'd had multiplied by ten... and she was smirking!
"Right, well, I'm off," Pansy said, sauntering towards the door and pausing only to look Hermione up and down with obvious contempt. "I've got things to do – I'll come back when the beaver's gone, Draco."
Draco didn't even hear her, he was so busy glaring at Hermione, who continued to smirk. She seemed to know how much it ticked him off.
The damn smirk was almost worthy of a Slytherin, too. Where the hell had she picked that up?
"So, about Cassie," she suddenly said, stepping into the room and taking her seat on an ornate chair. "You still haven't told me who'll be taking care of her."
Draco remained standing and glowered. "I don't give a damn who takes care of her," he said softly. "I'll leave her to a house elf."
Hermione clenched her jaw, trying to keep her patience. Which was very hard around a bastard like Malfoy.
"I, however, along with the Ministry, do give a damn about who takes care of her," she said in an equally soft, but charged, voice. There was a warning note in there. Draco missed it.
"All this commotion over a stupid little child. Why don't you just get rid of her!"
One second later Cassie was on the chair and Hermione's hand was around Draco's throat, her other hand holding the wand that pointed at the vital organs in charge of breathing.
"I can strangle you," she said conversationally. "Or I could do it quickly and just make your lungs... forget how to function. Somehow I liked the first option better, you deserving jerk!"
Draco felt rage welling up in him, but he was helpless to do anything – he was helpless against Granger, which only made it worse – and then he remembered.
"So, Granger," he croaked, wincing as her hand tightened around his neck. "What about that oath on your mother's blood?"
"That only applied to my last visit here," she said, smirking again. "Got anything else to say before you die of a... sudden lack of oxygen?"
Draco could see over the top of Granger's bushy head – he could see the baby girl lying on the chair. She stared straight into his eyes with her own, large gray orbs... so like my own, he thought, unnerved. His attention quickly snapped back to Granger as he tightened her grip on his throat even more.
Self-preservation could be annoying at times, Malfoy thought, pissed. "Wont – get – rid – of her!" he gasped out.
"You will never neglect her while she is under your care!" Hermione growled.
"Will – never – neglect – Cassie – undermycare!" he repeated, choking.
"Swear it on your mother's blood," she hissed.
Draco closed his eyes, remembering the bright red liquid that had flowed from the gashes striping his mother's skin. The blood that soaked her hair, her clothes, his hands when he carried her and ran...
"Swear it – on my – my mother's blood," he whispered.
And then her hand was gone from his neck and he could breathe again. He gasped in great gulps of air, his eyes still closed, a little too shaken to say anything but making sure his face was expressionless nonetheless.
"Remember, Malfoy," her stupid, hated, know-it-all voice said from a few feet away. "We'll be watching you. You make one wrong move and we'll burn all your wealth."
Draco opened his eyes and looked at her with complete and utter loathing.
"I'll be back," she said, then turned, stroked Cassie's head, and left the room. He heard the front door open, then bang shut, leaving him in utter silence.
Cassie stared at him.
"What?" Draco growled, glaring at her.
She continued to eye him with interest – and then her hair turned the pale blond colour that exactly matched his own.
"Friggin chameleon," Draco muttered, as a smile randomly lit up her face, then faded away.
Or was it a random smile?
"Squeaky!" he shouted, wanting to leave the room before he thought too hard about the baby. "Look after... Cassie." He said the name with distaste, but Squeaky caught the uncertain look on his face before he left the parlour to retreat to the privacy of his study.
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...and let it snow!
-Nabila :-)