The Similarities of Love and Hate
By Caitlin Wasson
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. What little money I have in my bank account comes from my minimum wage job working at a jewelry store.
Chapter Four
Decisions
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Hermione still had not told her friends about her pregnancy. What could she say? "Oh guys, by the way, that night when I went missing? Yeah, the one where Snape had to bring me to the deatheaters' meeting? Yeah, that one. Well, you see, I got raped and now I'm having Blaise Zabini's baby. Pass the pumpkin juice."
Hermione could really see that happening. However, with Malfoy coming up to her and whispering snide comments about the baby-on-board in her ear, they knew something was up.
"Hermione, what is going on?" Harry asked. "Malfoy keeps coming up and talking to you."
"Yeah, 'mione. Even if you are living together, it is really strange," Ron added.
"It's…. well, something," she said.
"What 'mione?" Harry questioned. "You can tell, us whatever it is. You can even tell us if you're shagging the git."
"Well…" she said. "You guys need to sit down for this one. This isn't the best place." After all, they were in the middle of a hallway.
They walked into the closest empty classroom and sat down.
"Tell us!" Ron demanded.
"Well guys… you remember that night I went missing?" she asked.
They nodded.
"Well, I was raped and now… now I'm pregnant," she said quietly.
"WHO?" Ron shouted. "Who in the bloody hell did it to you?"
"I don't know," Hermione lied. "It was dark."
"So you're having a deatheater's baby?" Harry asked. "It isn't Malfoy's, is it?"
"I almost wish it were," Hermione replied. "Do you hate me now?"
The hard look on Ron's face softened. "Of course we don't hate you. We'll stand by you no matter what Hermione."
"Thanks guys," she said with a slight smile. "Now I know who to ask when I have food cravings."
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Hermione sat at her desk in the potions lab, preparing for class. They were making a dissolving solution that day and she couldn't wait. She'd heard it was a very difficult potion but she was ready for the challenge.
"Miss Granger," Snape said. "Due to your current… condition, you shall not be participating in today's lesson."
Hermione stared at him.
"As you, the Gryffindor know-it-all should know, the solution contains asphodel," he said.
"Oh," she replied, remembering that asphodel, even in tiny amounts, could kill an unborn child. "What shall I do to make up the class?"
"Write an essay," he told her.
"An essay on what?" she inquired.
"An essay on the various abortion potions," he said carefully. "And the use of asphodel in them."
He couldn't possibly mean…
"And please come to me with your opinions on this assignment. I shall be glad to help you if you are… in need. Do not let this cost you," he told her. "Now get out of my sight."
Hermione was fuming as she packed up her things and left the room. He wanted her to kill off her baby? So what if she didn't want to have a baby? It was her baby and killing it before it got the chance to really live was no more right than being raped by a person she was forced to sit in class with every day. Everyone had their two cents to offer and all of them thought they were thinking of the best thing for her. Only she really knew what was best for her, none of them did. All of them thought that having a child was the end of everything for her. It didn't have to be that way though! She could still intern at Hogwarts in Potions and Transfiguration and take care of a child. If anyone could, Hermione Granger could.
She stormed back up to the dorms and plunked down onto the couch, crossing her arms across her chest and fuming.
"Now don't get your panties in a twist Granger," Malfoy said climbing through the portrait hole. "The professors are still in shock that perfect Miss Granger is in such a mess. Even old Snape isn't immune to your smarts."
"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be in class?"
"Shouldn't you be writing an essay or burying yourself in books?" he retorted. "He sent me out to make sure you weren't going to kill yourself."
Hermione's eyes narrowed.
"Don't look at me," he said. "He said it, not me. He knows it's Blaise, doesn't he?"
Hermione nodded. "He was there," she said simply.
He just looked at her.
"Ask your father," she told him. "They make a sport of it, watching each other rape mudbloods. I was just a game to Blaise, his initiation, and I'm now carrying his mistake. It's really too bad I can't get rid of it as easily as he can."
He gave her a look of grudging sympathy. Even if she was a mudblood, she didn't deserve to live with someone else's mistake.
"Don't you dare feel sorry for me," she said. "Hate me. Hate me like you always have because I hate you! I hate all you deatheaters!"
"This is the second time I've told you that I am not a Deatheater Granger," he said, a touch of anger entering his voice.
"Maybe you aren't," she replied. "But you will be. Look at your father, Malfoy. He was next in line to have me before Snape stepped in."
He looked at her in shock and disbelief. His father was capable of many things and he knew that he had done bad things to many girls at the meetings but he nearly raped a girl his own age. Albeit, he hated the girl in question but he knew her.
"You'll be just like him," Hermione continued. "You'll make mommy and daddy proud won't you?"
"I will never be like my father," Malfoy said. "Never!"
"Really now," Hermione replied. "I hope for that. One Lucius in the world is more than enough."
"Do you think it's easy living in his shadow?" he demanded. "Do you think it's fun having hatred and anger drilled into from the moment you're born and as you grow older, you start to question why? I don't have to hate you, Granger. I don't even want to hate you but I do because I've been brainwashed and you are a bloody know-it-all!"
"And you're much better? Sleeping with a different girl every night and even making a move on me? You're a sick bastard," she said.
"I didn't know you were pregnant! I didn't know you had been bloody raped by Blaise Zabini! I didn't think!"
"No, you thought," Hermione said with a small smile. "You just thought with the wrong head."
Malfoy stared for a minutes before bursting out laughing. It was strange for two enemies to share such a light-hearted moment, very strange indeed but little did they know that there was more to come.
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How do I get stuck on this? This morning, I didn't think there would be a chapter tomorrow, much less today. So anyway, please review and tell me what you like/don't like so I can make it better.
