A/N: My sincere apologies for this extremely late chapter. I was too sick to look at my laptop's screen for five minutes. I also have so much work and exams at college currently so excuse me if the updates aren't as weekly as before. I promise to make it up for you once my vacation starts.
"I can't believe you actually did that!" Draco fumed as he led Hermione out of the room
"Did what exactly?" Hermione frowned in confusion
"You stood before an extremely skilled leglimece who also happens to be the darkest wizard of all time and you kept insulting him in your head and out loud." Draco cleared up.
"I'm sorry were we listening to the same thing? Is that really what caught your attention? Have you heard the part where he said that you should kill me or was it just my lack of sleep! " Hermione snapped.
"Yes I did, but I'm not worrying about that because it was hypothetical." Draco replied dryly.
"Hypothetical!" Hermione scoffed, "What about Ginny? What about Mr. Weasley? They're probably the only friends I have left. What am I supposed to do? See one of them in the street and just look the other way because if I don't I'd get killed? What sort of madness is this?"
"They don't count." Draco pointed out.
"How's that?" Hermione asked.
"After George's escape they were trialed. Arthur Weasley was forced to disown his son."
"But what about the rest of the Weasleys. They're.."
"Dead. The rest of them are dead. The only ones left were Arthur Weasley, his daughter and one of his twins."
"But Ginny..." Hermione stopped abruptly in the middle of her sentence, catching herself minutes away from revealing the information she knew about the Weaslys.
"But Ginny what?" Draco raised a questioning eyebrow at Hermione.
"Ginny...never told me about that trial." Hermione mumbled.
"She doesn't necessarily have to be proud of it." Draco shrugged.
Hermione was silent for a moment. She took her time to study her new situation in her head. People's stares were becoming more blatant and their whispers more audible. Draco waved his hand in front of her.
"Things look...different." she remarked as she scanned her surroundings.
"Different good or different bad?" Draco asked.
"Different terrible." Hermione scoffed, "Everything looks bleaker, darker..even people."
"Dark times, literally and metaphorically speaking." Draco twisted his mouth sardonically.
"Are we going back to the Manor?" Hermione asked.
"Aren't you sick of the confines of the Manor already?" Draco prompted.
"Well yes, so I was hoping I could go for a walk." Hermione replied.
"I'll come with you." Draco said.
"It's okay, really, I can manage on my own." Hermione dismissed.
Draco sighed exasperatedly. He ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed the nape of his neck as if to calm himself down before speaking.
"Alright..would you mind if I joined you?" he offered.
"No, it's okay." Hermione conceded.
"Great. For starters, let's get out of this ridiculously crowded street." Draco urged, holding Hermione's arm and guiding her through the crowds.
"Why?" Hermione demanded in confusion as she tried to keep up with Draco's strides.
"Draco!" a high pitched voice crooned behind Hermione's back. Draco's smile faded and his relaxed frame tensed.
Hermione turned around to see an old colleague. Pansy Parkinson brushed past her with a wide smile plastered across her face.
"How are you doing, love?" Pansy purred. She stood on the tips of her toes and pressed a kiss to Draco's cheek.
"I thought you were in France." Draco said, freeing the lapel of his coat from Pansy's steel grip.
"I came back this morning" Pansy informed, "You look pale." she pouted, brushing Draco's cheek with the tips of her fingers.
"When haven't I looked pale, Pansy?" Draco raised his eyebrow at her.
"You look dull, darling. Merlin knows what sort of terrible company you've been having lately." Pansy rolled her eyes, turning her head to glance briefly at Hermione before looking back at Draco.
Draco looked at Hermione who was standing behind Pansy. Her cheeks were flooded with an angry shade of crimson. Her hands were clenched into fists beside her and her expression was blank.
"I've had perfect company actually, unlike you." Draco smirked.
"I don't want to talk about this now." Pansy raised her chin up indignantly.
"That makes two of us." Draco shrugged impassively, "We have to go now."
Hermione barely held back a scoff. It was about time Draco recognized her existence, she thought. Pansy Parkinson was twice as annoying as she remembered her. With her hair stopping inches before her shoulder, her face heavily made up and her gaze as icy as ever. And just like at Hogwarts, she was still finding it hard to keep her hands off of Draco. It was Draco's distant and even rude reaction that took Hermione by surprise.
"I'll pay you a visit as soon as I'm free." Pansy called after him.
"I'll let you know when you can." Draco called back, walking in long strides.
Hermione's mind raced with thoughts. She still hadn't recovered from Voldemort's threats, only to have Pansy thrown at her face. Was Pansy still with Draco? Hermione found herself wondering. Even worse, would she still be with him now? And if she did, did Hermione have the right to be mad? The thought of being the other woman irritated Hermione.
"What's wrong?" Draco asked, studying Hermione's frowning face.
"I just got threatened by the darkest wizard of all times that I'd get killed if I greeted any of my old friends! That's what's wrong!" Hermione snapped at him.
"Hermione, you won't meet any of them." Draco replied simply.
"Of course I will! There must be some of them still around, at least some of their families." Hermione contradicted.
"There are no insurgents in England, except of course the ones we're chasing. Non of their families remained either. Only those who agreed to disown family members who joined the insurgents were able to stay." Draco informed. "So there's zero to no chance that you'd meet any of them. Not to mention that the Dark Lord won't necessarily keep track of your everyday routine. He was just doing what he always does. Terrorize people enough of doing the action so they won't dare test whether he would go ahead with his threats or not."
"What about the others? The families that refuse to disown insurgents." Hermione asked. Draco's silence was enough answer for her.
"You killed them!" Hermione gasped.
"Always the accusative tone." Draco muttered under his breath. "I didn't kill anybody. But yes, some of them were killed. Others were sent to Azkaban...where they will eventually die."
"You don't have to cast the killing curse to kill somebody. By chasing them, raiding their houses and bringing them forth to fake trials where they would instantly face death or have to wait for it, you still killed them." Hermione shook with anger.
"Alright, what is this sudden Draco bashing session?" Draco frowned at Hermione incredulously.
"I don't feel like walking anymore, let's go back to the Manor." Hermione ignored Draco's question. She herself didn't know what caused the sudden fit.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" Draco asked, guiding Hermione into a narrow, less crowded alley.
"Nothing's wrong. I just want to go back." Hermione replied.
"Fine we'll go back, but first let me know what's with the sudden change." Draco pursued.
"Draco, I'm alright." Hermione lied, "Let it go." she pleaded.
"I won't, and you're lying. Something is obviously wrong, so what is it?" Draco insisted.
"I said nothing." Hermione gritted her teeth.
"Hermione, com..." Draco started to urge her more.
"Are you with Pansy?" Hermione blurted, cutting him off in mid-sentence.
"What!" Draco exclaimed with an incredulous frown. "Where did this come from!"
Draco was about to say something but he was interrupted by loud gasps coming from two old women passing by them, staring at Hermione in disbelief. He cursed under his breath. After scanning his surroundings, he led Hermione into a seemingly abandoned house.
"Look, Draco. It would be mad to expect you not to have other..wom...girlfriends...or whatever you call them. Because let's face it, this isn't even a relationship to begin with." Hermione bit out a nervous laugh, "We had a deal and we're going through with it. But I really can't put up with the idea of being that other woman who steals another one's boyfriend. So if you were with Pansy or still are with her, I'd like to know."
"Hermione calm down." Draco's hands brushed the length of Hermione's shoulders. He took her trembling hands in his. "I'm not with Pansy. I was at some point, but that ended months before I've found you in Australia." Draco said, "She's going out with Marcus Flint now. They were spending a weekend at France and she caught him cheating on her. People saw him running out of their hotel room half naked, running from Pansy while she tried to hex him. That was the unpleasant company I was talking to her about." he grinned widely at Hermione's poor attempts at suppressing her laugh.
"So..no Pansy?" Hermione asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"No Pansy. Nobody else either. I'm not sure how long it would take to improve that hideous image you have of me. But I'll push my luck and assume you'd believe me when I say there won't be anybody else. We had a deal at first, yes." Draco nodded slightly, "But we have more than that now and you should start acting accordingly."
"I'm..I'm not sure I understand what that means." Hermione said.
"It means I'm trying to make the best out of this and you're not helping. It means that I've spent quite a while trying to show you my true colors and you still couldn't let yourself believe that they were actually true." Draco exhaled sharply in frustration. "It means that even though I'm putting more effort in this relationship than I've put in anything else in my life, you still reuse to even refer to it as a relationship. So it's not perfect, alright I get it. It's not perfect for me either. But it's what we have, what we both agreed upon. So, do you want to spend your days mourning your wretched luck that threw you in a Death Eater's way?"
"No.." Hermione mumbled, shaking her head.
"Good, because you're smarter than this. We're both smarter than this, Hermione. So let's not make stupid decisions just because we're too proud and righteous to make the smart ones." Draco urged.
Hermione wanted to argue about being called righteous but she decided against it. "Alright." she said instead.
"Okay, let's go back to the Manor. You look so pale you could become a Malfoy." Draco smirked at her as he held her arm and apparated to the Manor.
The minute Draco walked through the door, he was greeted by his mother's anxious frown.
"Draco, where have you been?" she demanded.
"I didn't know you were here." Draco replied, already expecting his mother to pay him a visit as soon as she heard about Hermione.
"Of course I would be here. Are you alright?" Narcissa asked as she strode over to Draco.
She cupped his cheek and pulled him down to hug him. Over her son's shoulder, Narcissa saw Hermione stealing glances at her while fiddling with her linked fingers.
"Ms. Granger." Narcissa Malfoy nodded her head curtly in Hermione's direction. "Or do the two of us share the same title already?" she raised a questioning eyebrow at Draco.
"Let's talk about this somewhere else." Draco suggested, taking his mother's elbow and heading towards the near study. "We'll be back in a few minutes." he said to Hermione with an apologetic smile.
"I can't believe you haven't told me about this earlier!" Hermione heard Narcissa mutter under her breath as Draco closed the door behind them.
Hermione rested on a near chair. In front of her was a huge mirror and she gaped at her reflection. She was indeed paler than ever, and her hair desperately needed to be trimmed. She called for Linny, one of the friendliest house elves she got to meet in the Malfoy Manor.
"Yes mistress." Linny waited patiently for Hermione's orders.
"Linny, you really need to stop calling me that. It's..odd." Hermione said.
"Call you what, mistress?" Linny asked with a confused frown.
"Mistress. I don't want you to call me mistress anymore. Ms. Hermione would be great." Hermione prompted.
Linny nodded meekly. She looked at her feet, toying nervously with the ragged piece of cloth that barely covered her body.
"Alright, I need something to drink. Some orange juice maybe?" Hermione requested.
"Yes mistr..yes miss Hermione." Linny nodded eagerly before disapparating back to the kitchen and returning minutes later with a glass of fresh orange juice.
By the time Hermione finished her juice, Narcissa Malfoy had emerged from the study, followed by Draco.
"Take good care of yourself, darling." Narcissa murmured to Draco as he kissed her forehead.
She headed towards Hermione who was standing awkwardly near the stairs. Draco followed her.
"Draco, remember that crimson gown I left in my room here?" Narcissa asked suddenly.
"I guess, yes." Draco replied, unsure what brought this up.
"Can you please bring it for me?" she requested.
"Of course, I'll have one of the house elves look for it." Draco said.
"Oh don't be silly. I don't want house elves messing around with my clothes. Do it yourself, dear." she insisted.
After a long silent pause, Draco finally relented. He dragged his feet reluctantly up the stairs, afraid of what his mother would say to Hermione the minute he was out of sight.
"So I believe congratulations are due." Narcissa smiled at Hermione.
"Uh..umm...thank you." Hermione mumbled.
"I'll have you know, Ms. Granger, that I have nothing against you personally. I just want what's best for my son. To see him happy. But I have failed at doing both." Narcissa twisted her mouth ruefully, "Draco is an amazing boy..man. He's an amazing man. Regardless of what you might think of him. This is not his lifestyle, not what he wanted for himself. He deserves much better. Take him away. Away from all this." she waved her hands in the air. "Take him somewhere where you don't have to panic every time he leaves the house because there's a high chance he won't be coming back." she sighed desperately.
"If his own mother couldn't take him away from this, how do you expect me to do it?" Hermione asked, hoping Narcissa would give her a helpful answer.
Narcissa studied Hermione from head to toe. Her eyes lingered on her belly before looking back into her eyes. "You have a stronger hold on him now than I've ever had." she replied simply before turning around and heading to the door.