VII. Confrontation

"What?" Ron said blankly. "What do you mean, Malfoy?"

"I mean, when he and I, after you said no, we, well…"

"Spit it out, Hermione."

"The baby is his."

Ron backed away in disbelief. "No."

"I'm so sorry. It was once—I—I—I was vulnerable and, well, he took advantage of me!"

Ron stared at her not knowing if he should believe her. "He raped you?"

"Well, not exactly," she retreated.

"So you were willing? Merlin, Hermione! We were so happy a few hours ago. Why did everything fall to ruins?"

"There's more," she whispered, almost reluctantly.

"What?"

"There's a law saying that I can't marry you."

"What?" He began to pace the room as she filled him on the details and loopholes. "I suppose it's for the best," he said finally. "You have a lot to sort out, Hermione," he said. "I think we should separate until you figure out what you want."

"I want to marry you!"

"Then find Malfoy and convince him!"

"I don't know where to look. I need your help."

Ron shook his head. "No. I can't be there when he wins you over again. I can't do that."

Hermione shook her head. "Ron, I love you, not him. Please believe me!"

But Ron didn't say anything for a long while so Hermione finally left him alone in the room.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Kristah was staying with Molly and Arthur until Hermione and Ron got everything sorted out. They said that they weren't too old to start the parenting process over again but Hermione vowed that she would find Malfoy and get him to sign the paper so that she could marry Ron, have her baby that he would take care of, and then they would take care of Kristah and have a happy family.

But over the next couple of weeks, Hermione and Ron grew more and more distant and everybody in the household noticed the coldness between the two. Hermione now slept in Ginny's room and Ron slept in his and nobody talked of wedding plans anymore.

After three weeks of the unbearable silence—everybody looking at Hermione as though she did something wrong, which she had—she decided to leave for a while. She was still trying to find Malfoy so that she could get his permission to marry Ron. She hated that fact, that just because he didn't think about contraceptives and got her pregnant she had to get his permission to marry her fiancé. But she was not going to marry Draco! and he wouldn't marry her anyway. And, she thought, he would probably want to know anyway that he was going to father a child, she just didn't want to be the one to tell him.

She left the Burrow after three weeks and set out on her own, trying to find a job, a flat, and the father of her child.

The first two she found readily. Ron had been right and as soon as the war was cleaned up, Hermione was contacted for a job; she didn't even have to apply. Her new flat was just a couple blocks from the Ministry and she started her new job less than a month after leaving the Burrow and walked to work on her first day and every day thereafter.

When she arrived at the Ministry, she found that she worked in the same department as her fiancé. She was happy about this at first but found that if felt more and more awkward to be around him as the weeks wore on.

She learned—to her great despair—that in her absence, Ron had started sleeping with other women who worked with them, one in particular, Daphne. He hadn't touched Hermione since she had told him that the baby that she was carrying—now just over six months along—wasn't his but someone's she had yet to find.

The day that she had found that out about Ron, she had cried all the way back to her flat, lay on her bed and cried herself to sleep. The next morning she threw her ring at Ron's head and told him that until she was the only one he wanted they wouldn't get married and left him in his office with a trickle of blood falling down his forehead and a dumbstruck look on his face.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Draco watched her, had been watching her, waiting for the moment to make his move. He knew that she and Weasel had spilt up. As much as he hated her for leaving him alone in that room—allowing him to look but not touch—he still wanted her, but first she had to pay for hurting him.

Draco smiled when she decided to get tea after work, taking a detour from her usual path to her flat. When he entered the small tea-room after her he found her immediately, sitting in the cornernursing a cup of tea in her hands and tears streaming down her face.

He sat down across from her and she looked up, surprised. Her expression quickly turned from surprise to joy. "I've been looking for you!" she said.

If there was any statement he was expecting, that wasn't it. "You have?" he asked.

"Yes," she said happily and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Why would you be looking for me?" he asked in surprise.

"I need you to sign something so I can marry Ron!" she said. "I don't have it with me, though. I'd have to go get it." She got up and left three one-pound notes on the table.

"Granger." Draco tried to stop her but she was already out the door. "Granger, stop!" he said as he walked out the door and she turned around.

"What?" she asked.

"Why would I have to sign something for you to marry Weasel? And why would you want to marry him, isn't he fucking Greengrass?"

"Don't talk about that," Hermione said angrily, her mood turning dark.

"Why would you want to marry someone who was sleeping with someone else?" Draco asked, pleased with her anger.

"You know," Hermione started as she walked back towards him. "It's your fault that he broke up with me."

"My fault?" Draco asked angrily.

"Yes, you and that one stupid night!" she said loudly.

"Now it's stupid?"

"It's because of you that he's with that bitch Greengrass and not me!"

"You know why he really left you, right?" Draco asked snidely. He was angry. The only reason that she wanted to see him was so she could marry Weasley!

"Why?" she asked softly with tears in her eyes. He had to hurt her, make her pay for hurting him.

"Because you're just a dirty little Mudblood," he said slowing, pausing between the last three words and letting them sink in.

She looked at him in shocked contempt. "That's not true, Malfoy!" she cried and walked away from him.

"You know it's true, Granger. Why do you think he left you?" he asked in a cruel voice.

She kept walking away from him, though. She wasn't going to turn her back on him, not this time. "He left you because you're a Mudblood and he finally realised that!" he shouted out.

She turned around and glared at him. "Ron isn't like that, he doesn't care about my blood!" she screamed.

"So there's another reason you couldn't hold on to the only person who would ever care about you?"

"If there is, I'm not telling you now," she cried and continued on her way.

"So it's not because you're a Mudblood? It's because your hair resembles tumbleweed?" he said.

She just shook her head and kept walking, but Draco just followed behind her. He needed to know now and he was going to hurt her until she told him.

"Because you have freckles all over your face, or maybe it's that you're horrible in bed?"

She stopped, turned around and smacked him. Draco put a hand to his cheek and turned red in anger. "You'll pay for that, Mudblood," he threatened.

"Oh yeah? How?" she asked with an angry smile on her face.

"No one cares about you, Granger. Weasley left you for some whore. Potter, your parents and Dumbledore are all dead! You have no one! How many owls a day do you receive from your friends? None? That's what I though."

"Malfoy, I will use Avada on you and I don't care how long I have to spend in Azkaban for it, it will be too much of a joy to see you dead."

Had his talk hurt her so much that she was willing to kill him for it? Some of his bravado crumbled. "You can't use magic, Granger, this is a Muggle part of London, do you know how many Muggles will see you?"

She approached him with a deadly gleam in her eye. "Do you know how much I don't care?" she said, pulling her wand out and sticking it into the side of his neck. "That's right, now that you're at my mercy you're going to cry, aren't you?"

"I'm not at your mercy, Granger, I have a wand as well," he said, patting his pocket only to find it not there.

"Oh, this?" she asked and held it up, muttering a spell. Draco watched his wand catch fire and disintegrate before his eyes. Draco was definitely a little afraid of her now.

"You're not going to do anything," he said with forced bravado.

"Why? As you've pointed out, no one cared about me, no one would mind if I went to prison. You know what?" she asked suddenly, taking her wand from his neck. "Maybe I should just kill myself, no one would miss me! I wouldn't have to endure Azkaban."

Draco looked at her dumbstruck. Was she really going to kill herself over this? "Try," he said. "I bet you can't do it."

Hermione looked at him angrily but then breathed out. "You're right," she said and he sighed as well. "Do you know why?"

She grabbed his hand and put it against something round and firm. "That's why Ron broke up with me," she said in his ear. Draco followed his arm to see his hand resting over her stomach. "He's yours," she said and before Draco could speak or even process the thought that she was pregnant with his child, she was gone with a crack. Even if he could think of the complicated incantation to track where someone had apparated, he realised that he didn't have a wand.

He was left helpless, alone.

It began to rain.

A/N: No one knows why it rains when horrible stuff is happening, but I swear that it does. I love this chapter... The fight between Hermione and Draco was actually written long long ago. It was how the story started. We built around that argument.

I won't hold you too long, as I normally do.

Amber

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