Disclaimer: Not mine.
Perfect Mistake
Twelve
Bruised
"Oh God!" Hermione screamed when Harry appeared in her bedroom, cradling her baby in his arms.
She rushed forward, a bundle of energy at the sight of her baby. "Bee!" she cried out and snatched her out of Harry's arms.
"What happened to her?" she said in shock, moving her hand over Bee's freshly shaven head.
"Ginny's taking Ron home," Harry said quietly. "Don't hate him, please?"
"I can't, Harry, I will never be able to hate Ron," Hermione confessed. "I'm the one who deserves his hatred."
"He loves you too much to hate you," Harry said, cupping her face, his eyes locked onto her face.
Before she could say anything more, he disappeared with a pop.
"Draco! Bee's back," she screamed.
It took less than five seconds for him to race to her room, and then collapse next to her. "Her hair," he said, twisting to face Hermione, his thumb brushing what's left of her hair.
"Ron," she said quietly.
"Enervate," Draco said, pointing his wand at Bee's chest.
"Mommy," Bee whispered, her eyes focusing on her mother's loving face before a glass of water was pushed to her chapped lips. She drank greedily and then she slept.
"Draco," Hermione rested her hand on his arm as he fed the dreamless sleep potion to their daughter with all the care in the world.
He looked up at her. "Yes?"
"You'd have been a good father," she said; a priceless gift.
He smiled at her. "She turned out perfect after all," he said; giving her one right back.
She closed her eyes and felt him wrap his love around her once more.
--
After they made love for the first time, Hermione stared up at the ceiling, remembering how he made her cry out when his fingers raked the insides of her thighs, how she felt as though her very blood was pulling her towards him.
He was beside her, his eyes closed.
"Draco," she asked, propping herself up with her elbow and studied him.
His eyelashes fluttered open and his grey eyes focused on her face. "Yes?" he asked.
"Have we done that before?" she asked, smiling.
"No," he frowned.
"Good," she laughed, moulding her body against his. "Because I didn't think I'd have forgotten."
Her hands danced over his body like butterflies, and her tongue trailed kisses down his jaw. He closed his eyes and tried to think of a time when he'd been this close to heaven and that was the last thought he had before his brain shut down.
When they made love for the second time, Hermione thought, it was more than perfect, it was a harmony, it was two pieces of a puzzle coming together, it was them falling in sync next to each other, it was them falling in love all over again.
--
Bee awoke to the sound of her mother's laughter. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and then stared at the sight in front of her.
Draco had his hands clasped on either sides of Hermione's face, his mouth covering hers. Hermione felt her heart start to beat in place she thought she had forgotten- behind her eyes, at the base of her throat, in the swell of her chest and between her legs.
"Mommy?"
Hermione wrenched away and covered her mouth. "Bee, baby," she said comfortingly. "It was a dream."
Behind her, Draco groaned. "Oh, Merlin," he muttered.
"It's alright," Hermione soothed, kissing her daughter, trying to erase the sight of her mother kissing another man she didn't know as her father from Bee's mind.
"Mommy, I'm hungry," Bee proclaimed.
"Of course, darling, I'll go and make something for you to eat, I'll be up in a moment," Hermione smiled, bright as sunshine.
She disappeared down the stairs.
Bee turned to stare at Draco.
"Listen," Draco started. "It was an accident."
One look and he knew she wasn't buying it.
"It won't happen again," he tried again.
Bee narrowed her eyes. "Liar," she accused.
"Excuse me?" Draco said indignantly.
"You kiss her all the time, you hug her too," Bee said smugly.
Draco nodded, but he knew that those kisses Bee had witnessed were sideway pecks and friendly hugs, not the passionate lip lock she had just seen which she had been taught was inappropriate between people who were not married.
"She smells good, doesn't she?" Bee asked.
"Well, yes," Draco agreed.
"It's okay to kiss people when you love them," Bee said after a moment, studying him carefully.
"I do not love your mother," he said hastily. "Not that way anyway."
"You love her, you do anything she wants and even when you say her name, it sounds different," Bee said intelligently.
"How so?" Draco asked.
"Like it's a piece of candy, like it's light as a feather and covered with blankets," Bee said.
"I do not say your mother's name like it's covered with blankets," Draco grimaced. "Do I?"
"You don't yell at her or get angry when she isn't fair," Bee pointed out. "Because you don't want to hurt her feelings. You love her."
Bee slid off the bed and raced down the steps after her mother, leaving Draco in the room.
Draco wondered if Bee knew him better than he knew himself. He does hold the word Hermione balanced carefully, lightly on his tongue, as if it is made up of the fragile yet beautiful things in the world- butterflies, rainbows… love. He would do anything she wanted. But that was where Bee was wrong. It's not because he didn't want to hurt her feelings.
It was because when she is bruised, he's the one who aches.
--
"Okay, that was scary," Hermione confessed to Draco, sitting in front of the mirror.
"What?" he asked.
"Bee seeing us," she said impatiently.
"Right, that," he muttered distractedly.
She narrowed her eyes and swiveled around to stare at him. "Did something happen after I went downstairs?"
Draco shifted uneasily. "Well," he said guiltily.
"Spit it out," she commanded.
"In short, she just wanted me to admit that I love you," he sighed. "She's smart."
"She's ours," Hermione grinned.
"Are you going to tell her?" Draco asked.
"About you?" Hermione asked back.
He nodded stiffly.
"Draco," she sat down heavily on the bed so the mattress bounced beneath him. "When the time comes, I will, but for now, she's too unstable for me to tell her something like that. She's too young, she won't understand."
Draco sighed. "I know, but she's mine. I don't like the idea of her growing up thinking that son of a bitch is her father."
"Draco, don't say that about Ron," Hermione said angrily.
"Okay, I'm sorry," he mumbled. There was a pause and then he reached for her hand. His fingers brushed across her wedding ring and she flinched.
"This breaks me," he said hollowly. "God forbid, it breaks me."
"I'm sorry," she said, pulling her hand away then hiding the offending ring behind her back. "I'm going to check on Bee." She said- an excuse to get away from the suffocating silence in the room.
She stopped at Bee's room and watched her daughter cradle a thick book in her lap, her eyes skimming the page hungrily.
"So much like you huh?"
She turned away and he put his arms around her- an apology.
"Of course," she smiled- forgiveness.
If Draco had not chosen that moment to glance down, he would have missed Hermione sliding her wedding off her finger and dropping it gently into her pocket.
A/N:
I'm SO SORRY for updating so late ): things have been awfully hectic and i'm having some problems at home, which meant i didn't have much time to write. i hope this makes up for the lateness.
thanks for all the reviews and i would LOVE IT if i got more (:
-lissie
