Chapter Eight
Oh Hermione, isn't this dress darling?" Narcissa squealed from across the store. She had convinced Hermione to go shopping for a dress for the party.
"I don't know, what do you think girls?" Hermione asked. She had dragged Mandie, Ginny, knowing that she would need as much help as possible with Narcissa. And to annoy her.
"Er, I'm not sure what to say about it," Ginny said.
"It's…different." Mandie looked at the dress again. "It's a bit, um, much."
"According to my maternity magazines," Narcissa replied, "this happens to be at the height of maternity-wear fashion."
Hermione walked over to Narcissa and put her and on her shoulder. "Narcissa, I'm a month pregnant."
Narcissa sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. I know the story. You were set up on a date, the next day freaked out, took six tests a week later, but ignored the single positive for a week until you told Draco. Now here we are, another week later and you have yet to gain a pound. Darling, the party is to tell the world about the good news!"
Hermione took the dress, along with the other three Narcissa had pulled out that the sales assistant were holding.
"I'll be right back," she said as she walked to the changing area.
Hermione pulled off her sweater and skirt and held up the dress to the mirror. It was nothing like Hermione would ever expect to come from Narcissa, the elegantly subtle dresser. The color was a bright purple with…oh she just couldn't look at it anymore.
She stepped out from behind the curtain and handed the dresses to a woman sent back there to make alterations.
"Thank you, but I won't be purchasing any of these," she said politely.
"And that is why you must always remember your make-up spells, ah Hermione," Narcissa said, turning around. "How were the dresses? Which one did you pick?"
Hermione took in a deep breath and said, "Narcissa, thank you for the help, but these dresses just aren't my sty-oh my goodness."
"So how vas shopping vith Narcissistic Narcissa?" Viktor asked the girls a few hours later at Hermione's favorite restaurant.
"Her usual self," Hermione said with a sigh.
Harry and Ron insisted on taking the girls out to dinner as soon as they were free from Narcissa's clutches. They had, of course, been invited to lunch, but insisted on giving the girls their space.
"She tried to lecture us about appearances," Mandie complained. "She actually thinks that I'm a glamour blonde!"
Hermione looked at Mandie. Tall, leggy, thin, any modelizer's dream. She had beautiful blonde hair that was kissed with every color the sun had to offer and left a little extra to touch her skin. When they first met, Hermione had been assigned to show Mandie around the office and automatically categorized her with one to sleep around to get to the top, but her looks proved to be an advantage and a good cover. The two became friends within a few weeks. Mandie was the wild girlfriend Hermione felt like she missed out on in school. She had Ginny, but it wasn't the same.
"Forget about her," Ron said. He put his arm around Mandie. "We know your hair is real. You tell us every time someone questions it."
Everyone laughed at Mandie until Ginny looked uu and squealed.
"Oh Mandie," she sang. She nodded her head towards the door.
The entire table turned around and saw Aiden step into the restaurant.
Mandie waved for him to come over.
"So that's why our table is bigger than usual," Hermione teased.
"Hello," Aiden said nervously, taking a seat beside Mandie. They kissed each other hello, accompanied in the background by sound affects.
"Sorry," Mandie whispered. "The babysitter couldn't make it tonight."
Aiden chuckled. "Don't worry dear, we can just distract them with some shiny toys."
Hermione watched the two. It reminded her a little of when she and Draco were married.
"I hope you all don't mind, but I asked a friend to stop by," Aiden said when he finally tore himself away from Mandie.
"Actually," a familiar voice said from behind them, "I made sure I was here. How else could I find out what my mother said while she was shopping today?"
The air tensed up around the table and a waitress pulled over a chair for Draco. Unfortunately, it made the order of seats Draco, Aiden Mandie, Ron, Ginny Harry,, Viktor, and Hermione, right between Viktor and Draco.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked quietly as Draco took a seat.
"Er, hi, I'm Aiden," Aiden introduced himself, feeling the change in atmosphere he obviously caused.
Everyone introduced themselves politely, trying not to let anything spoil their evening or upset Hermione.
"I'm here to enjoy an evening with those I once called friends," Draco replied under his breath.
"Draco!" Harry called, finally getting his attention.
"Sorry, what did you say?"
"I was asking you how things were going," Harry repeated.
"Fine, and yourself?"
Harry smiled and put his arm around Ginny. "I can't complain."
Draco chuckled at the happy couple. He never had any problems with either of them. At least not while he was married to Hermione. If he didn't love his single life, he might miss being married to Hermione.
There was a momentary silence around the table until the waitress came to take everyone's orders.
Dinner went as smoothly as one would expect. Draco spent most of his time trying to talk to Mandie, who was distracted by Aiden, and tried to catch up with Harry. The two were best friends for several years of his marriage and were parts of one another's weddings. No one was very responsive to his false attempts and were relieved when the check came. Draco paid, of course, and everyone practically raced out of the restaurant to get back home.
Hermione said good-night to her friends, she was driving and Mandie was going out with Aiden for a walk, and began to walk to her car. When she unlocked the door, a shadow reached around her to open the door. She grabbed the wrist and flipped over the person.
"Hermione!" She stopped what she was doing and looked at the person under her.
"Draco?" she yelled. "What the hell are you doing under me?" She stood up and pulled him to his feet.
"I was getting the door for you before I was thrown to the ground," he sneered as he brushed some dirt his clothes. "What? Did you think I was going to attack you or something?"
"I didn't know it was you, so how was I supposed to know that you weren't?"
"I want to talk to you."
Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed. "So now you want to talk to me? You didn't want to talk during therapy. You didn't want to talk at home. You didn't even want to talk when I would trick you into having dinner with your own wife who only wanted to know what was going on in her husband's head! What's so special about now?"
Draco gave her a cold look. "I want you to control your emotions. Stress is bad for the baby."
"What do you want?"
"Like I said, I want to talk."
Hermione locked her car and began to walk across the street to a small park. Draco followed her and sat on a bench by a tall tree.
"We ended things on a pretty bad note," he finally said after a deep breath.
"I know." Hermione looked down at her hands. "I don't want our child to know that we hate each other. It will only be hard on her. Or him."
"Plus, with us as parents, he, or she, will also have to deal with attention from the media from time to time," Draco added. "Remember how hard it was just to have our wedding?"
Hermione laughed. "I was blind that whole day from all the lights flashing on my way from the house to the ceremony." She looked at him. "We were so happy back then." She held on to her feelings for Draco for all these years, but she was so hurt and didn't know how to feel, so she hid her confusion with hatred and disgust.
'I never cheated on you,' she thought, but was too afraid to say.
"Hello! Welcome! Come in!"
Hermione, Ron and Mandie looked at one another. They had come together in Hermione's car to Narcissa's house where the party was being held.
"Give your coats to the house elves," Narcissa told the friends. "Harry and Ginny are already inside at the bar."
Hermione, Mandie and Ron took off their coats and walked inside the house where they easily spotted their friends.
"Thank goodness you three are here," Ginny said instantly. "Almost everyone here either used to be a death eater or works for the ministry or keeps coming over to make small talk with Harry! Hermione, you look amazing for a pregnant woman!"
"It's only been a month Gin," Hermione said with a blush, but she knew how amazing she looked in her dress. She had only gained about three kilograms (6 or 7 pounds), but that was to be expected. Her dress was a simple baby doll style. It was pink and satin with spaghetti straps that fell along her ankles. Her hair was in big waves that barely showed off her freshwater pearl earrings (pink) that matched her dress.
"Well you still look amazing," Viktor said, walking up to the group of friends. Everyone said hello to their friend. "You know, I don't think I vas too velcomed here."
Hermione didn't say anything. She never told Viktor why she and Draco split up. The tabloids weren't too quiet, but he never believed it. She just laughed and took a look around the room. The Weasleys were all there, along with members of the Order, old schoolmates. Even Gabrielle was looking radiant with her boyfriend across the room. It was as though every magical person Hermione knew, publicly, was there. According to Narcissa, there was going to be another party for the muggles.
"Hermione my dear!" Cornelius Fudge called out with a smile. He walked over and gave her a hug. "Congratulations! I couldn't be happier for you. Where is your husband?"
"W-what?" Hermione asked.
"Well, you are carrying your ex-husband's child, I assumed that the two of you were back together. You were always such a perfect couple."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you Minister, but it was just a-"
"Hermione," Narcissa interrupted, "may I see you for a moment?"
Hermione excused herself and walked off with Narcissa, who led her to the study. She looked around the room. This was the first room she and Draco made love in in this house. They were there for afternoon tea with the Parkinsons and escaped to "show Hermione the grounds." That was the first time he said, "I love you."
Narcissa looked down at Hermione. She was at least a head taller and very thin, so her height was exaggerated. "Hermione, I understand that you want to be hip and modern by having this child out of wedlock, but it isn't the way that the Malfoys do things. I would appreciate it if you and Draco would present the illusion of a happy marriage. We will tell the press that the two of you have been speaking for the past few months and decided to give things another chance. You renewed your vows six weeks ago in Italy or wherever you choose, and have been trying to keep it quiet until everything was in order, but the baby blew the secret open and you decided to share your love with the rest of the world because it is stronger than ever."
Hermione stared up at Narcissa. "Are you for real?" she blurted out.
"Mum, you wanted to see me?" Draco asked from the other side of the door.
"Perfect timing," Narcissa said. She walked over and opened the door to let Draco in. "Hermione dear, you tell Draco the plan and I'll go get Rita Skeeter. Oh, and here's the new ring because you are starting everything fresh with nothing from your past." She left the room and closed the door.
The two adults could feel the tension in the room. Draco had only had the same memory as Hermione as he walked down the hall.
"So," he said, "what's this plan?"
"We've been secretly married for the past six weeks," Hermione mumbled. She found it hard to look at Draco, so she walked along the bookshelf.
Draco sighed and fell onto the couch. "What did we do?"
"We had a bad night."
"My mother."
"I know."
"I can't believe she's making us do this."
Hermione looked at him. "You're going to go along with it?"
"We have to, don't we?" He said.
"We can just tell everyone the truth, you know," Hermione replied.
Draco shook his head. "My mother would die."
"Like that would be so horrible," Hermione mumbled under her breath.
"I heard that." He looked at Hermione. "If we go along with the lie, it would mean that we would have to pretend to like one another, live together, and just cause complication."
"And we'd get caught because you shagged some teenager a few weeks ago."
"How do yo-forget it. If we don't go along with the lie, my mother would look like a fool. This is social murder in her eyes. And there would be question of the father. You were called a slut when we split up, imagine how much abuse you'd have to take now that you're pregnant."
"I think I hate you more now than the day I slapped you."
"Which time love?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, but then it hit her. "We're going to say that we're working on a project together for, I don't know, something big. We were working late one night and getting along-"
"Here's the thing though, we hate each other!" Draco almost yelled out. "Why would we be working on something together?"
Hermione snapped her fingers. "Mandie and Aiden. We tell people we were accidentally set up on the blind date and had a pleasant evening. We slipped into memories for one moment and kissed, which brought back all the feelings we used to have for one another. Skip to when I found out I was pregnant. We decided that we knew it would not be the best time to rekindle our romance, especially with our history, but have decided to raise the child as anyone in our situation would and are working out the details. We're not getting back together. You proposed to be a gentleman, but I turned you down. That's not too far from the truth. Hopefully your mother hasn't told her story yet. This means we only have to be civil in public, not married."
Draco looked up at Hermione. She always knew how to handle a situation. "I like it, plus it would explain your date being here."
"NOTHING HAPPENED!"
"Smile for the Daily Prophet!"