Green Glass: Part Two
Two and a half years later
Chapter 13: Silhouettes
Hermione tiptoed through her bedroom, stealthy and cautious. She slowly opened the closet door and ran her eyes over the contents. Frowning slightly, she let the door rest again on its lock.
"No hide in closet, Mumsie!" cried a high-pitched voice, accompanied by a wave of raging giggles. Hermione smiled to herself and pretended to look in the bathroom. The giggles intensified.
"Well," Hermione said at a decibel higher than normal. "It seems he isn't in here after all. Perhaps I should check somewhere else?" She walked with heavy steps toward the bedroom door and was expectantly immobilized by the pair of pudgy arms that tied themselves around her ankles. Smiling broadly, she looked down. A russet brown head poked it's way between her calves and Hermione planted her palms on her hips.
"I find you, Mummy!"
"You found me, Dew. I could have sworn I were looking for you, though."
"Hermione?" came a third voice from the first floor, and the brown-haired boy squealed.
"Daddy!" he called and scrambled to his feet, racing out of the room and chanting "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..." with each step of the stairs. Draco knelt in the foyer, waiting for his son to approach him.
"Dewey," he warned, rubbing at his calf. "What did I tell you about leaving your toys in the foyer?" Dewey stopped within two feet of his father and frowned.
"Toy hurt you?"
"Yes, Dewey," Draco said, picking up the little wooden rabbit that he had given his son for his 1 year and 9 month birthday. It sported a set of wooden wheels and a magic ball that, when held, would force the rabbit to roll along behind a person at an interval of about a yard. Dewey loved the toy and, consequentially, it was frequently found in odd places about the house.
"I sorry, Daddy," Dewey said, looking heart broken, and stepped forward to hold his father's cheeks in his hands. "No cry. You no hurt." Draco smiled at his son and placed a kiss between his honey-brown eyes.
"All right, son. Go play."
Dewey was happy to accept the rabbit into his possession and placed it on the floor. He picked up the ball and ran through the dining area, laughing wildly. Draco smiled after him and stood up to face Hermione, who had followed the two-year-old in his adventure down the stairs. He kissed her on the cheek.
"Did we have a good day?" Draco asked, and Hermione smiled.
"Wonderful. I'm completely exhausted, and he's still got a 5k run in him," she said, crossing her arms. "Did the book say when he would just stop this constant motion and... I don't know, sit down and read something?" Draco laughed.
"I don't know, love, but I would imagine it to be some time after he learns to read."
"Don't even joke about that. He correctly identified the entire alphabet this morning. A to zed, and not even in order! So much for the luxury of spelling over his head. My mum always used to do that. We're going to the s-t-o-r-e. If I try that with him he'll ask me to get him some of that raisin bread he likes."
"So you dislike having a wunderkind sprout from our loins and take over our home?" Hermione rolled her eyes.
"You know that isn't true. I love him more than anything. I wouldn't change a thing about him... except perhaps his sugar intake. I told you not to give him juice with breakfast."
"So now it's my fault?"
"Stop twisting what I'm saying. I didn't say that at all," Hermione defended and started away, but Draco stopped her by the wrist.
"Don't go away mad, now," he said, slipping his fingers into hers. "What else did you do today?"
"About three hours of hide-and-seek, assembled three, twelve-piece puzzles fourteen times each, and read aloud the entire 'Cury Orge' collection. And somehow managed to find time to direct the laundry and dishes to wash themselves."
"And you say you want to work full-time," Draco teased, taking a step away from her to allow Dewey to race his rabbit between them. Hermione laughed.
"I want a job so I can have a break! Speaking of which, how was your day?" she asked and Draco groaned. It was common knowledge that he did not approve of the switch from owning a business to working under someone. He had traded in his love of crafting for an iron brander and an endless supply of tables in need of company marks. He let go of Hermione's hand and wandered into the kitchen, setting his briefcase on the counter and raiding the refrigerator for fruit juice.
"Bentley, that Scot who works in sanding? The one at the Christmas party? He's been promoted to 'Tique scout," he said, pouring himself a drink and imagining it to be something alcoholic. Despite the clever way of their meeting, Hermione had forbid any beer or liquor in their home since their move: she hadn't allowed herself a sip while pregnant and, in wake of reading a current events article about a six-year-old girl who had drowned in a keg of whiskey while her parents were entertaining, saw no reason to risk such a catastrophe after giving birth to Dewey Harper.
He had been born on June 21st, sometime between ten at night and two in the morning. Draco had been entirely unconscious when Hermione had started to feel strange, and she had apparated herself to the hospital without him when the tenth or eleventh call of his name did little to rise him. She hadn't thought much of it, but had been nearly ten centimeters dilated when she remembered that he was still asleep. She heard later that it had taken a house-elf with a foghorn to make him pay attention. He arrived with time to spare and was the very first to hold Dewey. They had decided on Harper initially, but Faye said that she'd had an ominous dream and that it was completely nonnegotiable that the child be named Dewey. Draco had turned his nose up at first, but both Faye and Hermione thought it was adorable and the power of women won out in the end. They had compromised and squeezed 'Harper' into the place between first and surname, making a complete set of identification. Draco had eventually warmed up to the change, but was often derided for his original reluctance. Dewey, however, had never once expressed ill regard for his name.
"I take it you're not happy for Bentley?" Hermione asked, opening a cupboard and removing a selection of plates and cutlery.
"Of course I am," Draco said, after swallowing a bitter bit of grapefruit extract. "He's got four redheaded ankle-biters and one hell of a mortgage... but love you know how much I want that job. It's the only thing at that place remotely close to what I used to do." Hermione set down a cup with a bit more force than absolutely necessary, causing Draco's attention to snap to her. She ignored it, however, wiping her hands on a dishrag although there were completely dry and free of kitchen grime.
"I want juice, Mumsie!" Dewey said, entering the kitchen and, inevitably, the conversation. "I want juice. Mumsie, I want juice!" Ignoring the pointed look Draco was giving her, Hermione stepped around him and liberated a plastic cup from the stack above the icebox. She filled it a quarter with grapefruit juice and smiled slightly when Dewey made a sour face at his first sip and continued to drink it. "Thank you, Mumsie."
"You're welcome, Dewey. Take that to the table and get in your chair, all right? Mummy'll be there in a minute; it's time for dinner."
Dewey toddled toward the dining room and Hermione balanced a bowl of broccoli casserole on her stack of dishes and made to follow him.
"Hermione," Draco said, somewhat warningly, and took the bowl from its unstable perch.
"Thank you," Hermione said, ignoring his obviously questioning manner. "But be careful; it's hot."
"Tell me what that's all about," Draco said, persisting, and Hermione pretended to look innocent.
"What is what about?" she asked.
"You know what I mean. That mood you're in."
"It's nothing."
"It isn't nothing. Tell me."
"I just hate it when you complain about work, Draco," she admitted. "I don't know why I bother to ask you anymore. It's always the same; somebody else is doing something you want to do. Something you used to do before we came into your life and shifted the whole thing suburban. I'm sorry, all right? I never asked you to give everything up for me and I hate it when you make me seem guilty of it." Hermione set the stack of dishes down and leaned heavily against the table, avoiding eye contact with Draco. She half expected him to be sympathetic and apologize, but he didn't. He stood solid, holding his casserole, and peered down at her.
"You know I don't mean to do that," he said coolly. "I hate my job, and that's all there is to it. I love you, and I love Dewey, and I don't blame you for work. I have no intention of placing guilt on you."
"Well it certainly feels that way," she said harshly, then lifted her voice to talk to her son. "Dewey, love, let's keep the bib on tonight, hm? You look so handsome in that shirt!" Draco ignored the interruption and placed the casserole on the table.
"Well, how do you think I feel when you complain about the baby, Hermione? As if you're not trying to make me feel guilty for making you stay here with him all day? I'm sorry that having my son has forced you away from the deceased you care so deeply for."
This time, Hermione slammed down the spoon she had been using to serve her two-year-old his daily dose of fiber and carbohydrates.
"How dare you insinuate that I do not love my son!" she yelled at him, standing to her full height and balling her hands into fists at her sides. "How dare you even assume that I don't spend countless moments cherishing the time I have with him, and thanking whatever's out there that I'm not stuck in an office for ten hours a day while he's growing up with a nanny as a mother? That I don't wonder everyday what I did to deserve such a wonderfully bright child and such an amazing place to raise him? You think I'd rather watch dozens of bodies of children roll in on hospital stretchers, with broken limbs from abusive parents or burns from cigarettes or horrible disfigurements from tragic accidents? You think that's what I want?" Hermione felt herself getting overly worked-up and, from the look on Draco's face, she could tell that she had stopped making coherent arguments some time ago. She took a breath and turned away, wiping at the eyes which burned with unshed tears. "I said it was nothing, Draco. Just forget about it."
She scooped a helping of casserole onto a plate and set it at the place where Draco was renowned for taking his meals, then helped herself to some before sitting down beside her son and shoving a morsel into her mouth. Draco stood behind her, almost shell-shocked, and watched wordlessly as she ignored him and tried to coax Dewey into eating. Firstly, Dewey hated broccoli and secondly, he seemed to lose his good nature whenever he witnessed a fight. He was obviously and understandably unsettled by his parents' rants this particular evening.
"Hermione," he said, ignoring the fact that his vegetables were losing the fight against room temperature. Draco knelt beside her chair and placed his hand on her knee. His eyes begged her to look his way, but she ignored him. "I'm sorry. I know you love Dewey, and you know I love you both. Neither of us had any doubt of that, did we?" Hermione folded her hands in her lap and leaned back against the chair.
"No," she agreed. "I don't know why we fight, Draco. All we ever manage to accomplish is to starve our son and second-guess ourselves. I don't like it. We never used to fight like this."
"Things are just different now. We miss the kids, we don't have the most fulfilling lives outside of our kids, and we're still adjusting to this ever changing baby business. It's natural that we're going to get a little cranky. All couples fight."
"But Draco," she said, taking a stuttering breath. "I haven't seen you all day, and five minutes after you come home I'm already picking a fight. This and we've been together for three years- what happens at five? Ten? Will I start calling you at work to nag about something? Get up early in the morning to yell at you before you leave?" Draco laughed and rested his head on her thigh. "It isn't funny!"
"It is, love. We'll make it through this, I promise. We're going to be together forever and eventually... we'll get used to it," Draco countered and she sighed, placing her hand behind his neck and running her fingers over the hair she found there.
"I hope you're right. Go on and eat, I'm going to put Dewey upstairs. He'll never eat, as it is. We should really be more careful about what we say around him."
"Aw, sure he will. We just have to convince him that we're happy."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Hermione asked, somewhat suspiciously as she noted the smirk marring his face. Draco proceeded then to tickle her, using the chair to his advantage by holding her to it so that she could not escape. He exhausted the tried-and-true spots of her collarbone and underarms and explored much of the rest of her body for notable discoveries, torturing his son's mother until her face matched the cabaret carpet and Dewey had dissolved into a fit of giggles to rival his mother's. "Stop it! Stop it, or I'm going to... I'm going to..."
"You're going to what?" Draco asked as he reeled in his fingers and kept them at bay on the sides of her face. Hermione was blushing and breathing heavily, but smiling and radiant. She kept her tight grip on his wrists as she calmed her beating heart.
"I love you," she said and Draco lifted an eyebrow.
"Really? And that's supposed to stop me, is it?"
Hermione smiled and he kissed her, holding the sides of her face and pressing their lips together like teenage lovers on St. Valentine's. She sighed as they parted and kept her eyes closed, leaning back against the chair.
"Dewey, eat your dinner," she said. Dewey's giggles stopped and he made a face.
"No. Brocky yucky."
"Well," Draco said, liberating his wrists from their slender shackles and standing straight. "Then you better not eat your dinner." Dewey looked confused as he watched his father take his proper seat on the other side of his high-chair.
"Why?" he asked, eyes wide as he stared at the pasta on his plate.
"Because," Hermione said. "If you don't, Daddy's going to tickle you." Though the logic seemed to make absolutely no sense, it sufficed for Dewey and he dove into his dinner, making a range of faces and gulping down quarter-cupfuls of grapefruit juice. Hermione smiled at Draco from across the table and turned her attention back to her dinner.
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When Draco had exhausted the tiny machine shop of his garage to the point where he could feel accomplished for the remaining five minutes of the evening, he switched off the lights and started up the stairs, rubbing at the stiffness in the back of his neck. All was dark and quiet on the second floor and he decided to check in on his son before retiring to bed with the girl he adored so much for putting up with him. To his surprise, however, he found his two favorite brunettes together in the nursery. Hermione, it seemed, had become so desperate to calm their son of his nighttime cries that she had folded herself into his hand-made crib and rested the child on her chest. Draco smiled to himself and pulled a stool toward the bedside, fearing that any more weight on the mattress may cause it to collapse. He was worried more for his night's sleep than the furniture itself; Dewey seemed to be most fussy at night.
"Hermione," he whispered, prodding her gently in the thigh. "Love... wake up." Hermione inhaled sharply and swatted at him as she would a fly. Draco laughed softly and caught her fingers, triggering an automated response in Hermione to wake. He looked quirkily at her. "What are you doing?" Hermione rolled her eyes.
"He's afraid of broccoli."
"What?"
"He said that it didn't feel right in his stomach, and he was afraid that it would come out and eat him if I didn't stay here," she said, kissing the top of Dewey's head. Draco seemed, if possible, more amused.
"He really said that?"
"Not in so many words, but that was what I gathered from him; he was quite upset. Imagination, he does have. What time is it?" she asked, shifting slightly but making no motion to rise from her accordion-like position. The side of the crib had been removed a few months ago (an action which proved less encouraging in the field of toilet-training than hoped) and she stretched one leg through the opening.
"Two-thirty."
"Two-thirty! Did you just come up? Draco, this isn't healthy for you. I read somewhere that you need at least eight hours of sleep a night. You're lucky if you get four!" she scolded, trying to sound angry while at the same time keeping her voice down for sake of the sleeping boy on her chest. Draco shook his head at her and assisted in the removal of forty pounds of dead-weight from her chest.
"And I read somewhere that if you read enough, you'll go blind. So stop reading and I'll stop building," he countered wittily, holding Dewey to his chest and pressing his lips to the side of his head. Once Hermione had vacated the birth, he set the child down and covered him in a quilt. "Anyway, you're not getting much more sleep than I am."
"That's his fault, not mine," she said softly, bending to rest the side of her face against Dewey's back and assure herself that all his internal functions were working properly. "At least I get to nap when he does. I do wish I could find the time to do that and bathe properly. I must look like a wretch," she said, laughing softly. "It's no wonder you'd rather stay in the woodshop." She hadn't meant it negatively; more as a short on herself than on his attentions. Draco frowned deeply, watching as she held their son protectively between his mattress and the sensitive fluids contained in her inner ear. She was a mess; it didn't seem as if she had found the time to shower properly that day as her hair was tied up loosely atop her head, and light brown globs of peanut butter were apparent on some of the outer tendrils. She was wearing his clothes, hers long ago put away so that it would be his shirt that was dyed purple with grape juice and stained with whatever items may be served at one of the day's meals. Come to think of it, he thought. I think she was wearing that shirt yesterday.
And despite it all, she seemed perfectly content with the child-terror that was the cause of such miserable lifestyle. She kissed his back through the textured cotton of his Quidditch-themed pajamas and whispered words of comfort to him, assuring the boy's subconscious that no fibrous green vegetables would trouble him that night. She was smiling as she stood, now instructing Dewey to come and get her if anything were to go wrong, and Draco looked up from his stool in awe. Hermione looked oddly at him, her tucking-in and good-nights finished, and stepped into the space between his knees. She tangled her fingers in his hair and reveled in the way the strands caressed her palms. Draco, suddenly it seemed, tied his arms around her waist and brought her to him, keeping his temple pressed to her navel.
"You're not wretched," he said, so softly she hadn't distinctly heard him. Hermione chose to repeat his words in her mind until they fit themselves together, instead of ruining the heavily tense moment with trivial questions. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever known."
"Draco..."
"Why do you put up with us?" he asked, interrupting whatever speechless comment she had chosen to utter. Hermione smiled and hugged him to her.
"Because I love you. You're my boys; how could I live without my boys?"
"Marry me," Draco stated randomly, sounding almost as if he were intoxicated, or half-asleep. Hermione tensed slightly in surprise and drew back from their quirky embrace.
"What?"
"I mean it. I want you, I want you to have me. Please, Hermione."
"Oh, Draco," Hermione said, dropping to her knees in front of him and planting a kiss on the bridge of his nose. "Of course I'll marry you, but... where is this coming from?" He kissed her.
"I don't know. I love you absurdly today," he said, grinning, and she mirrored him.
"Why? I've been nothing but horrid to you since you came home."
"I want you to be horrid to me everyday when I come home. And while I'm away. And early in the morning before I leave," he kissed her again. "And if you feel the need, in the middle of the night as well."
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A/N: A little shorter than a normal chapter, but because you guys want this out and people are hounding me for SEX no pun intended, in retrospect, I'm going to stop here, because this is the most opportune place to stop. A lot of explaining for no real reason:oD I hope you liked it. Really.