Terrifié

Chapter Twenty-Five: Moonlight Goddess Revisited

Last Time:

"Draco." She whispered.

"I'm here."

"Draco… I'm pregnant."

TBC
Silences are like snowflakes. Every silence is difference. There are emotional silences- tense, angry, exciting, and affectionate. There are comfortable and awkward silences. There are thoughtful silences, and tired silences. Cold silences, stuffy silences, paralyzing silences, irritating silences, thrilling silences and joyful silences. Some silences are thick, and others are as thin as a t-shirt in winter. Some silences fly by, and some creep along. Some you forget, others you will remember for the rest of your life.

This silence was the latter. It was a flat silence, one that made you want to close your eyes, and swallow hard. It was as thick, hot and itchy as a woolen blanket in July. It was a silence that seemed to pull you down, like quicksand, and make every movement sluggish and almost painfully slow. It felt like an itch in your throat while you were in an important lecture. You desperately needed to cough, but you held it back for as long as humanly possible, hoping it would go away. But it didn't go away. And finally you would hunch down, cover your mouth and try to make your cough as quiet as possible.

"I just found out today." Hermione was the first to break the silence. Draco looked up at her, startled as though from a dream or enchantment of some type. His eyes showed only confusion.

Her story came out in shards and memories, facts and impressions. Eventually he managed to piece it all together. Having waved Harry and Ron away when they finally showed up, looking for her, he had listened to her broken sentences until his mind began to ache. Don… the little girl… the baby… it was all so much to absorb. Hermione had fallen silent, and Draco looked down at her once again.

"The baby is just as much my problem as yours. I'll help you Hermione, of course. How could you think you'd have to do it on your own? There'll be plenty of money, and I want to be there as much as possible…" Hermione was laughing lightly, her face buried in her hands.

"Shh. Shh. God, don't tease me like that." She reprimanded, smiling at him wanly. Her lips quivered as she said, "It may not be yours."

Draco hadn't even thought about Don. He stood abruptly, and began pacing the room. Hermione watched him tiredly from the window. His head was spinning. After a few minutes of silence he spoke, his voice sounding distant in the cold room.

"Well, mine or his, that man will never be near the child." Hermione looked up. The stone in his voice was indisputable. She simply nodded. Of course. Draco paced feverishly for another moment, and Hermione followed his progress, almost falling to sleep. She had never felt so drained before in her whole life. All of a sudden Draco was kneeling in front of her. Hermione blinked and looked into his passionate looking grey eyes. "I don't care who the father is, I want to help raise it." He said, his voice soft now, sincere… hopeful.

For the millionth time that day, Hermione felt tears well in her eyes. She blinked them back. She wasn't sure if she knew any man who would agree to raise and support a baby that may not even be his with the woman who broke his heart. Maybe Ron or Harry… but even they would give it more thought.

"Thank-you, Draco. But I think you're taking on too much. You may not feel that way in 7 months." She said softly, touching his hand.

"Hermione, this isn't going to change or go away. I'm not going to change or go away either. This isn't a decision for me, really- it's what I have to do."

"Pride." She shook her head- quickly, abortively.

"Honour. But that's only an added incentive. I still love you Hermione. I think I always will."

"Do you really love me?"

"I loved you enough to let you go." Hermione smiled as his logic mirrored her own. All of a sudden everything seemed animated, every colour more brilliant, the cold more biting, and the sound of their breathing louder. Their eyes locked. "I loved you enough to convince my parents to let me marry you. Enough to fly halfway across the country for you, to fight for you, to forget years of training, my background, the basis of my life, on a whim, for you. I love you enough to think about you every day, and dream about you every night, and I love you enough not to be with you despite that. Whether you return my love or not." Hermione swallowed and looked away from his intense gaze, her cheeks flushing pink.

"I'm going to be a teen mother. I'm going to be fat and pregnant, and then I'll have Baby, and be tired and haggard and…"

"Hermione."

"Draco, don't you understand that I love you too? Of course I love you. But…"

"But what! You want to make us both miserable and alone instead?"

"You'll forget about me soon enough, and then you'll be happy not to be with some woman with a baby, and out dating and finding someone else." Hermione fidgeted. "We'd hurt each other, Draco, we both have so much baggage, and…"

"Everybody hurts everybody. It's part of life. Just because we're young doesn't mean we're stupid. I'm not stupid and neither are you. Look me in the eye and tell me this isn't real love. Tell me it will go away in a few years. Tell me you can live without me."

Hermione looked Draco in the eye and said, "I can live… I can live without… I… fuck. Why are you doing this to me?"

"Why are you doing this to us?"

"Stop twisting my words!"

"Stop twisting our relationship." It was as if the world had sped up and they were both laughing now, blubbering stupidly at each other.

"You can't take on this responsibility." Hermione insisted.

"You can't take on this responsibility!" Draco countered.

"It's too hard."

"Being apart is much harder."

"You don't know anything about children."

"Oh and you do?"

"Exactly!"

"We'll learn together."

"What if we fight?"

"We always fight."

"We'll scar Baby!"

"Everyone fights! At least it's only because we love each other so much."

"Just STOP throwing my words back at me!"

"Then just MARRY ME!"

"FINE!"

"GOOD!"

"Oh God, no, we're 17, we're…"

"In love?"

"Yes. I love you, Draco. Merlin, I love you."

"I know."

"Everyone's going to freak out."

"Everyone always freaks out."

"What if the baby is Don's?"

"It will be a baby, it will be a chance to start anew, and it will be innocent."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Are we going to be ok?"

"Yes."

Hermione was half-inclined to simply throw the newest letter from her parents out, rather than read it. Considering the way things had been going lately, it couldn't be great news. Of course she was happy about Draco, and Harry and Ron's continuing support of her and of her relationship with Draco, and their seemingly easy acceptance of her pregnancy… but things seemed dismal at the moment. So when the owl dropped the familiar stationary on her plate at breakfast the morning after her reunion with Draco, she grimaced in apprehension. Sighing, she picked it up, and with sudden inspiration, waved to Draco and signaled him to follow her out of the Great Hall. She smiled reassuringly as he showed signs of worry. It was good not to be alone anymore.

"I just got another letter from my parents… I thought we could read it together." Hermione told him once they were outside the massive doors. He kissed the top of her head and she smiled at how comfortable they were together, as if they'd never spent the painful weeks apart. Sometimes it felt like they were two pieces of one puzzle.

"Of course." He took the envelope from her, deftly opened it and handed her the letter. Hermione opened it and barely glanced at it before handing it back, preferring him to read it to her. He understood immediately.

"Dear sweetheart,

I don't want to overwhelm you, but I have more news regarding Don. It seems the little girl who brought the charges has had some kind of breakdown and is incapable of testifying. Her parents are adamant that she not be involved in the trial in any manner. Don's lawyer has insisted that her statements given to the police be excluded from the case since she's not a stable and reliable witness, and brought in a psychologist to testify that girls this age often fabricate stories for attention or love…. the case against Don looks a lot weaker than we originally thought- all of this has happened and it's just the pre-trial. It's looking likely that the charges will be dropped or at least the case postponed until the girl is older.

I don't know whether this is good or bad news to you, since you still haven't written me! Are you alright? Please let me know darling, I'm concerned… ever since we left at Christmas I've had this terrible worry in my heart over you… I hope it's unsubstantiated.

Love,

Mum xoxo"

Draco had paused periodically in his reading to look at her, but Hermione simply stared straight ahead. When he finished she cuddled into him and closed her eyes. After a few moments he spoke again.

"So what are you going to do?"

"What?" She asked, still staring straight ahead.

"What are you going to do about Don?" Hermione blinked.

"Nothing?" She finally looked up at him, searching his eyes. He looked away.

"Nothing? He raped a little girl, Hermione!" Draco seemed suddenly enraged as he moved away from her. Hermione stared at him in shock and bewilderment.

"It wasn't proven!" She cried. Draco shot her a look. "He… I don't… It's none of my concern." She finished weakly, still trying to figure out Draco's angle.

"None of your concern? Listen Hermione, I know you love Don in some strange way, and I know you want to protect him. But it's not just about you and him anymore. He's never going to touch you again. That part of your life is over. Stop thinking like a victim. Think about the baby. Think about that little girl. And think about all the little girls Don can do this to." Draco was pacing back and forth now, although he maintained eye contact with her. His manner was so intense he was practically emitting sparks.

"But Draco… you're right. If I go back to him he won't touch those other girls." Hermione was still struggling to accept this new way of thinking about the situation but what Draco had said was right. She was the one who knew about Don's behaviour, she had to protect others.

"Merlin help me!" He half-shouted, stopping in front of her and putting his hands on his head as if to keep from shaking her. "It's like you have this beautiful, clever mind filled with little traps and bolted doors that he's planted there, you know?" He was speaking in a whisper now, almost to himself. "Hermione, you can't go back to him. It's not just about you and him anymore- if it ever was. It's about your parents, it's about the other girls, it's about Harry and Ron, it's about me, and most of all it's about the baby, ok? If you go back to him you will destroy all of those people, as well as yourself and eventually him." Draco was struggling to find a way to present the idea in a way that made sense to her. She cared more about others than herself. She understood the concept of justice, but did not apply it to herself. And for some reason, she cared about Don. If he could just make her understand now, then perhaps they could end all of this.

"Everyone." Hermione said, deep in thought.

"Everyone you care about and everyone who cares about you. Don is a sick man, Hermione. He's very sick. Sick people need help. But only you, Harry, Ron and I know that Don is sick. So we have to make sure he gets the help he needs."

"Draco, I'm frightened." Hermione was shaking. He knew that on some level she understood what he was going to say, and that she was already fighting it. She wasn't ready for this step in the healing process, but unfortunately it needed to occur now. Before the baby came, before they started a fresh chapter of their lives together. So he ignored the pang he felt in his heart as he looked into her eyes, frightened but still trusting him, and continued.

"You need to tell someone what Don has done to you." Her body jerked as if she had been physically struck, and she made as if to turn away, but Draco grabbed her by the shoulders. He could feel her withdrawing into herself, shutting doors, stiffening, closing like a flower in the cold. "Hermione! Listen to me! This is the only way. You have to tell someone. You have to tell your parents, or the police, so that they know how to take care of Don and make him better!"

"No!" It came out as an anguished sob as her face crumpled, eyes shutting.

"Hermione, are you listening to me?" Draco waited until she nodded minutely. "This is the best thing for everyone. I know it will be hard but I will support you and be with you through everything. This will protect us and the baby, and all the little girls. Do you want them to get hurt, Hermione? Do you want them to have what you had?" Hermione practically screamed when he said this, and Draco had begun to cry himself. Silent tears were pouring down his face as he held onto her shoulders like a vice, his face a foot away from hers, which was contorted in misery. His voice was gentle, but as steady and swift as a river. "You have to do this for Don. You have to help him. He's sick and the only thing that can help him is justice. Justice for you, for him, the little girl, and all the other people in the world that have and will suffer because of him. You have to stop the lies and the hiding. Your parents deserve to know what's going on."

"I can't. I'm not ready. No, Draco, no, please." Hermione was wild-eyed, still whimpering as she begged him. Draco clenched his jaw, until finally she was silent, looking at him blearily.

"I know you Hermione. This isn't the real you. What he has made you isn't the real you. The real Hermione Granger is passionate, and loving and intelligent and proud and strong. And the real Hermione Granger loves and values justice above all. If you could fight for justice for house elves when you were a child, if you could fight for justice for Muggleborns and half-bloods against Voldemort, then now, surely, you can claim justice for yourself. Claim justice for yourself, for your friends, your family, for all the victims, and for the baby. It's the only way to help Don. It's the only way to end this, Hermione." Draco backed away from her, releasing her shoulders but guiding her as she slid to the floor to sit and look up at him. He knelt down in front of her and she wiped the tears off of his face for one long, silent, aching moment.

"I can't. I'm not strong enough." She whispered. Draco winced. It had to be done. He stood up abruptly.

"Then you aren't my Hermione. It's over between us until it's over between you and Don, Hermione. Let me know when you're ready to finish it." His words were terse and as he walked away his movements were slightly robotic. He had once thought he could never walk away from Hermione, never let her cry alone-

But now he knew he loved her enough to do anything for her, even if it broke his heart.

Draco knew it was her by her soft, uneven breathing. Her uncertain steps as she stole across his room towards the bed where he lay, unsleeping. The self-conscious pauses as she looked around in the dark. But for once in their relationship, Dracohad no clue why she was here. To say goodbye to him? Or to let him back into her intricate and remarkable life?

She climbed onto the bed, and he moved over slightly as she lay down next to him and pulled the duvet over herself. She looked at him, her pale skin glowing slightly in the dim light and her eyes bright, causing him to remember all those months ago when he had first discovered how beautiful she was, when she had been his moonlight goddess. She smiled tentatively, and under the covers her small, cold hand found his. The tension in his body released and knowing her decision, he leaned over and kissed her.

TBC